Bullfighting is a contentious issue in many quarters, even in Spain, the home of bullfighting. Attendances are declining, particularly among the younger generation, the argument to ban bullfighting rages in the Spanish courts.  But it was not always so and for a youngster growing up in a poor working class district of Seville Bullfighting becomes an obsession. He takes the first tentative steps towards his destiny looking after the young bulls but soon he finds himself inside the bullring facing the power of the fighting bulls and though a rare talent, Francisco does not find life easy. Rejected by his first true love he loses confidence in his ability and after a setback is unable to face his friends. Not knowing in which direction to turn he runs away, joining the Spanish army. In Morroco his experiences and the cameraderie of his fellow soldiers turn him into a man and finally he returns home.

The end of the Boer war brings peace to South Africa and opportunity in the goldfields. A promise of riches entices men from far and wide to the Witwatersrand and a young Scot is one of them. Leaving Edinburgh with his family he emigrates in search of a better life. But in the goldfields unscrupulous men thrive and false promises abound, fortunes are won and lost in a heartbeat and the scramble for riches engulfs the Europeans. On the other side of the divide the poor native labourers have little prospect of a better future, resigned to a life of hardship. Solomon is one of these, forced from the land with little alternative but to labour in the gold mines he is separated from his family for most of the year, struggling to survive and to provide for his family until a chance encounter changes his life.

Rob is mad about sailing. As a lowly apprentice plumber his finances stretch only as far as an ancient Flying Fifteen a boat he aquires from an old man in Middlesborough. The craft is a scruffy and battered specimen, in need of loving care but after several weeks of hard work Rob and his friend Mallory return the boat to pristine condition. They decide to launch the boat one Sunday evening, leaving her moored overnight and return the following morning before work to sail her for the first time. She handles well, Rob is pleased and for a time the boys put Betsy through her her paces but work calls and they decide to return to the harbour. A simple enough task except that, turning for home they encounter an impenetrable bank of fog.

Relations between NATO and the Russian Federation are already fraught and heightened further when a mega yacht mysteriously appears off the Black Sea coast of Ukraine. Britain's GCHQ takes note, tracking the vessel to Istanbul where an agent witnesses a mysterious visitor to the yacht and it becomes clear that further investigation is needed. The secret service decide to mount a more intrusive surveillance operation, America's CIA becomes involved and after further intelligence comes to light an agent is sent to infiltrate the yacht's crew, her devastating discovery seting in motion a vast counter intelligence operation.

Femen is a radical feminine group created by women to fight for their rights in a Ukraine suppressed by a ruthless governing body. Gathering outside the Parliament building they hold a protest and that brings them into conflict with the President. He decides to act and orders the arrest of the protesters. Katja is one of those arrested and whose mother happens to be a mid ranking member of the State Security Service. Reacting to the news of the arrests the mother visits the prison and secures the release of her daughter, an act that does not go down well with the President. Summoning his fixer Markov Kalman and gives him the task of locating the girl, telling him to make her vanish to teach the Colonel a lesson. However, Katja's mother has connections and calls in a favour from an unexpected source. The search for the girl begins.

A near fatal accident in the waters of the Minch results in Rory and his father losing both their boat and their livelyhoods.  There are few opportunities for a young man to earn a decent living amongst the islands and so Rory finds himself forced to look to the North Sea oil industry for work. He manages to secure a post aboard a rig supply vessel. The ship needs repairs and is sent to Edinburgh for a few days and given shore leave Rory, by chance, meets his best friend from home who is now an undergraduate. Malcolm introduces  Rory to the pleasures of student life, a revalation, and Rory realises that there is a more exciting side to life so when he is invited to visit Las Vegas with some of his shipmates he jumps at the chance and his life takes a whole new turn.

Defeat by the British army leaves the defeated Zulu nation fragmented and in the grip of famine. Nkosinathi's village suffers and it falls to him to feed his clan. Strong, brave, a Zulu warrior posessing a hunting prowess second to none he pursues the wild game of the savanna. The world though has changed, a new Induna, a whiteman, controls the land and the people and in time Nkosinathi  finds himself the hunted animal. His life is in danger, he must flee and so he embarks upon a long and lonely journey of survival. He falls in with unscrupulous men, learns the ways of the  colonists, eventually exploiting them as they have exploited the Zulu.

At ten years old Georgie orphaned, his fathe dead in a far off land and his mother succumbing to the plague. Taken in by wayward relatives the boy is put to work thieving, picking pickpockets on the streets of Victorian London and always fearful of arrest. He learns to survive with the help of his two cousins living a wild, carefree life until one day he falls into the hands of the police. Expecting nothing less than prison or even transportation he is resigned to his fate. But, by chance, a recruiting sergeant witnesses his plight and offers him enlistment as a boy soldier. Having little choice Georgie takes that option, eventually leaving for South Africa with the regiment. For the next few years he marches the length and breadth of the colony until one fateful day he  finds himself facing a formidable Zulu army.