However, when an unexpected and desperate accident involving Runcible's powers transport the two to the dangerous world of Ilitor, the duo are forced to cooperate to survive in their harsh new surroundings.

The intense climate and harsh natural surroundings along the Altamaha, coupled with history, compelled Oglethorpe to seek a resilient group of people to settle the area.

For Centennial, history would be what it always had been: how could man adjust to his harsh surroundings?

They were mostly good men, some better than others, who led expedient lives in harsh surroundings, and lived to tell the tale.

Muscovites, accustomed to harsh surroundings and a degree of discomfort that might unsettle many Americans, seem to find small pleasures in even the most unsightly spots.

On the contrary, it was quite logical to be pleased that a younger generation of rational beings should be in such good mental and physical shape despite their harsh surroundings.

In these harsh new surroundings, he missed the dense dark, the silences, the piety, and even Sifans himself, with his cautious friendliness.

Toynbee's theory, if I understand it, was that civilizations thrive in harsh natural surroundings, while people who can pick their food off trees never really bother with much else.

With a few bare phrases the author conveys a feeling for the bleak, harsh surroundings in which his people live.