Adrian Mole discovering that he himself has cancer. His loyal friend and co-worker Bernard Hopkins comes to the rescue, moving in with him and promising to remain until his cancer is in remission. Fortunately Adrian's cancer treatment is successful and Bernard leaves to pursue romance with a local widow, giving Adrian a pig as a farewell present. The final book ends with Adrian finding out he will be a grandfather and Pandora arriving outside the house. The Mole family is dysfunctional. Adrian's parents Pauline and George Mole are working-class characters with limited social mobility who drink and smoke heavily. Both are often
Saul of the Mole Men capsule. Saul soon finds himself in an underground world populated by "Mole Men" and "Bird Bats" as well as unexplained characters like "The Floating Pancake" and "Chinacula", a cape-wearing Chinese vampire. Though cut off from the surface world, Saul is elated, believing he will find evidence beneath the surface for his theory that there are sentient rocks descended from a huge "mother rock". Terrified by the Mole Men, Saul impulsively impales their king using the STRATA transmitter. The king eventually dies, touching off a power struggle between his two sons – the older (but corpulent and corrupt) Bertrum Burrows, and