A year after a subglacial volcano erupts, mysterious elements from prehistoric times emerge from the melting ice, bringing unforeseen consequences.

In the last years of Victoria's reign, London is beset by the "Touched": people — mostly women — who suddenly manifest abnormal abilities, some charming, some very disturbing. Among them are Amalia True, a mysterious, quick-fisted widow, and Penance Adair, a brilliant young inventor. They are the champions of this new underclass, making a home for the Touched, while fighting the forces of… well, pretty much all the forces — to make room for those whom history as we know it has no place.

Mark Grayson is a normal teenager except for the fact that his father is the most powerful superhero on the planet. Shortly after his seventeenth birthday, Mark begins to develop powers of his own and enters into his father’s tutelage.

Two federal agents from two different continents, and two different mindsets, must work together to investigate when wreckage from a destroyed alien spacecraft has mysterious effects on humankind.

Two police officers investigate a series of brutal murders in which the victims have had bodily organs removed. When one of them questions a young woman who has been seen at the crime scenes, it turns out she is an alien from an interstellar prison ship and that the murders have been committed by a powerful xenomorphic alien which had escaped.

In a world mostly wiped out by the plague and embroiled in an elemental struggle between good and evil, the fate of mankind rests on the frail shoulders of the 108-year-old Mother Abagail and a handful of survivors. Their worst nightmares are embodied in a man with a lethal smile and unspeakable powers: Randall Flagg, the Dark Man.