Nikki Blue is a dancer at a strip club hidden along a back road in rural New England. Further down the road, Alice, a burnt-out, neurotic college grad with no particular ambitions, spends her days working at a roadside fossil and rock shop.
In the 22nd century, a paraplegic Marine is dispatched to the moon Pandora on a unique mission, but becomes torn between following orders and protecting an alien civilization.
When she learns she's in danger of losing her visa status and being deported, overbearing book editor Margaret Tate forces her put-upon assistant, Andrew Paxton, to marry her.
Dr. Adrian Helmsley, part of a worldwide geophysical team investigating the effect on the earth of radiation from unprecedented solar storms, learns that the earth's core is heating up.