A small town in Texas finds itself under attack from a hungry, fifty-foot-long gila monster. No longer content to forage in the desert, the giant lizard begins chomping on motorists and train passengers before descending upon the town itself. Only Chase Winstead, a quick-thinking mechanic, can save the town from being wiped out.

Two escaped convicts are found hiding in a rocketship built by a renegade inventor, who forces them to become the crew for a trip to the Moon. Also on board, as inadvertent stowaways, are his assistant and his secretary; and none of them are aware that the inventor is actually a Lunarian explorer sent to Earth by the dying Lunar civilization and the only remaining male member of that civilization.

The Bounty leaves Portsmouth in 1787. Its destination: to sail to Tahiti and load bread-fruit. Captain Bligh will do anything to get there as fast as possible, using any means to keep up a strict discipline. When they arrive at Tahiti, it is like a paradise for the crew, something completely different than the living hell aboard the ship. On the way back to England, officer Fletcher Christian becomes the leader of a mutiny.