In December 1941, a German tank column is moving towards Moscow. During a mission to stop the enemy advance, Soviet pilot Nikolai Komlev's Il-2 is shot down in enemy territory. To survive, Komlev must face hunger, extreme cold, evading wild wolves, and avoiding Nazi soldiers. When he finally makes it back to safety, he faces the strongest challenge of them all.

During the siege of Leningrad on the Eastern Front of World War II, a young man helps evacuate civilians aboard a barge, but the barge is old and starts leaking, the storm on the lake threatens to sink it, and the planes that appear in the sky are not the rescue planes.

"During the greatest war in the history of mankind, young lieutenant Ivushkin assembles a courageous group of POWs to plan a daring escape from captivity. With the power of a half-destroyed T-34 tank, Ivushkin and his crew challenge an enemy battalion, ready to battle until the end--for family and for country." --container

Don Rumata is one of a group of Earth scientists who have been sent to the planet Arkanar with the proviso that they must not interfere in the planet's political or historical development. Treated by the planet's natives as a kind of divinity, Don is both godlike and impotent in the face of its chaos and brutality.