A collection of stories, based on natural and unnatural catastrophes and exploring the macabre and its meaning. The stories range from midnight revelling in an East Austrian cemetery to a picnic for crackpots on the White House lawn. They also include the source of the tell-tale smells of Nabuti, the unsporting hiding place chosen by the Nuclear Control Committee for radio-active waste and the crumbling defence tactics of a luxury high-rise against a crawling army that fumigation cannot kill. Other tales tell of how magic and horror stories followed in the wake of a furious whale, how miracle and revolution were launched when a Pope stubbed his toe and how happiness came to a woman who thought she was Cleopatra.