Each chapter of
Century is accompanied by an episode of a text-story entitled
Minions of the Moon, written in the style of a 1960s "
new wave" science fiction story. Moore writes as "John Thomas", and in the style of
John Sladek.
Chapter One: Into the Limbus The first segment,
Love amongst the Troglodytes, is set in Africa in 1236 BC. It details how Orlando (as a young woman named "Bio") first became immortal by bathing in the Fire of Youth, and the time she spent with a tribe of primitive immortals who live around the fire. One immortal showed her the remains of a mysterious black object, a
monolith from
2001: A Space Odyssey. The second segment,
In the Wake of the Black Nautilus, is set a few hours after the
Nautilus' attack on East London in 1910. Mina Murray is left disturbed by her earlier encounter with Janni Dakkar, and is fearful of how her own immortality will affect her in years to come. Allan Quatermain pacifies her with a romantic gesture, promising to give her the "Moon above
Soho". The next three segments are all set in 1964.
Her Long, Adorable Lashes shows Allan in a sexual relationship with the female Orlando, and reveals Orlando to be the true identity of O, the protagonist of
Pauline Reage's
Story of O.
Requiem for a Space-Wizard begins the main story, and shows superhero Captain Universe giving his ally "Vull the Invisible" a tour of his newly acquired headquarters. All of the while he privately speculates what sort of person Vull is beneath his invisibility, but when Vull leaves the headquarters he removes his invisibility helmet, revealing himself to be Mina in disguise. In
Coming Forth by Day, Mina, the alien "
Galley-Wag" and his
two Dutch Dolls are summoned to the
Blazing World, where Prospero sets them the task of going to the Moon and stopping a civil war between two Lunar races. They travel to the Moon in an airship called the
Rose of Nowhere, and during the journey Mina and the Galley-Wag see the corpse of
Professor Moriarty, still clutching the
Cavorite engine from the
first volume and frozen in a block of ice in orbit around Earth.
Chapter 2: The Distance from Tranquility The first segment,
Escape from Nowhere, is set in outer space in 1896, and shows the Galley-Wag escaping from a spaceship run by
pink-skinned aliens, where he was kept as a slave for many years. The second segment,
Glass Shirts and Goose-Bones, is set in 1964 and continues the story of Mina and the Galley-Wag's Lunar journey. Arriving on the Moon's surface, Mina finds several strange objects from different time periods, including an Anglo-Saxon crown and an Elizabethan doll, and suspects that they may have landed on the "Limbus of the Moon", where lost things accumulate.
Babes in Toyland continues from
Escape from Nowhere, as the Galley-Wag's escape pod flies to Earth and crashes in the Arctic Circle, where he is found by
Frankenstein's monster. He is nursed back to health in Toyland (a settlement inhabited by sentient, toy-like automatons), and is accepted into their community. The Monster, who rules Toyland alongside his automaton wife
Olympia, gives the two Dutch Dolls to the Galley-Wag as companions.
A Long Way from Baltimore continues from
Glass shirts and Goose-Bones. Under cover of invisibility, Mina spies on an American Lunar base, where the astronauts speculate and argue about the origins of a colony of giant ants which have been attacking them. In
Skulls and Amazons, the Galley-Wag pilots the
Rose of Nowhere across the Moon's surface, observing the behaviour of the giant ants and finding a vast field of human skulls. In the sixth and final segment,
Give Me the Moonlight, Give Me the Girls..., the crew reunite with Mina and show her the various alien species they have seen, including the
Clangers and their Soup Dragon. They discover a citadel populated by naked
warrior women called Myrmidons, who explain that a plague starting in 1901 killed their entire male population, and the skulls are of their deceased. To keep their race alive, the women harvest sperm cells from the frozen body of a human man, whom Mina recognises as
Professor Selwyn Cavor.
Chapter 3: Saviours The first segment,
A Cricket-Cap of Thorns, is set in 1901, shortly after the events of
H. G. Wells'
The First Men in the Moon. Stranded on the Moon and confronted by several Selenites (the giant ants from the previous chapter), Professor Cavor kills himself by stepping out of the Moon's atmosphere. The Selenites come to worship his frozen corpse as a deity. The remaining five segments are set in 1964 and conclude the main story.
A Harsh Mistress reveals the war Mina and the Galley-Wag were sent to prevent began when the Myrmidons stole Cavor's body from the Selenites, and as they prepare for battle the Myrmidon leader
Maza mounts a reptilian steed called a "Nak-Kar", and mentions the presence of a
celestial being who observes everything the Myrmidons do. In
Moonbeams, Home in a Jar, three astronauts in the American lunar base see the Myrmidon army riding Nak-Kars and charging into battle against the Selenites, but they decide not to report it to base command because they are growing cannabis inside the base and fear the repercussions of their secret being discovered. In
A Moonlight Flit, the
Rose of Nowhere hovers over the battlefield, and the Dutch Dolls distract the Selenites by suspending Cavor's body from a rope. Hastily devising a plan to end the war, Mina threatens to kill Maza unless she follows her demands. In
A Sea of Crises, Maza orders the Myrmidon army to cease their attack and announces they will return Cavor to the Selenites, because an alternative sperm source has been found. The
Rose of Nowhere crew retrieve Professor Moriarty's corpse from its orbit around Earth and bring it to the Moon. The story concludes with
The Sins of the Father, in which the Myrmidons extract intact sperm cells from Moriarty and successfully fertilise donated egg cells. Maza thanks the crew for their help in saving her race and rewards them with a banquet, but as they celebrate Mina privately regrets this solution and dreads the possible future repercussions. ==Release and reception==