When aliens land on a planet new to them, they find a population obsessed with a virtual reality and uninterested in the intense beauty of the natural world around them.

In an unknown town in the far future, a hacker blackmails a civilian by hijacking his virtual immersion software, putting the civilian in doubt of what's real and what's fake.

A virus and bacteria-ridden world forces humanity into virtual reality where human touch is but a simulation. When a scientist researching potential reentry encounters the pleasure of real human touch for the first time since her birth, she grapples with the limitations of the seemingly perfect yet largely empty life she has been given.

In the far future, an invention called "the prism" uses quantum mechanics to cause divergences in future timelines and create a means of communication across these alternate realities. Two different women explore the choices they have made in their own lives and the regrets they harbor--and have to figure out how to ultimately make peace with their decisions.

At the root of her complicated family formed by her father and stepmother, a girl faces years of abuse through what they consider to be a “royal beating.”

The ex-wife of a famous male writer considers a story he wrote about a neighbor they once had.

A daughter, on the verge of becoming a mother, learns a great deal in spending time with her own mother.

A woman embarks on a treacherous, snowy journey to help her friend.

Years after facing abuse from the hermit overseeing a nature preserve, two children—now adults—enact their revenge.