50 years after a nuclear war, the two superpowers handle territorial disputes in a different way. Each fields a giant robot to fight one-on-one battles in official matches, each piloted by a man inside, known as robot jockeys or jox. The contest for possession of Alaska will be fought by two of the best. The conscientious Achilles fights for the Americans. Opposing him is a Russian, Alexander.

Major Charles Forsythe is a Vietnam veteran U.S. Army officer stationed near Rome. He is a brutal, if effective, commander who was "fragged" by his own men in Vietnam. When he is denied promotion because of the number of men injured during his training exercises, he takes out his anger by beating his pregnant wife Sarah. She miscarries. On her release from the hospital, Sarah is determined to get back into shape and begins running. She meets Alan Morani a former Olympic runner who is a paraplegic as the result of a car accident. Morani offers to coach Sarah to run in the Rome marathon, a race which her husband has won two years in a row. Sarah realizes that winning the race is the best way to avenge the death of her baby and destroy her husband's ego.

A dramatic history of Pu Yi, the last of the Emperors of China, from his lofty birth and brief reign in the Forbidden City, the object of worship by half a billion people; through his abdication, his decline and dissolute lifestyle; his exploitation by the invading Japanese, and finally to his obscure existence as just another peasant worker in the People's Republic.