In a world where inter-cultural communication is translated through an immerser, which Agnes has had on too long, her husband Galen meets with the restaurant owner to plan their fifth anniversary dinner, but one of the employees, Quy, recognizes Agnes’s addiction and tries to help.

When a man marries a princess from Cimmeria, a country he believes he imagined into existence, he must come to terms with a culture that recognizes twins as a single person—a primary and their shadow—and the lengths a shadow twin would go to in order to become their own person.

When their made-up country suddenly becomes real, three high school friends find themselves in a predicament.

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.

A man looks back on his father-in-law's life after he passes away, thinking of the many jobs he held and his military service.

A man flies back to the country of his birth and reckons with people and places he longer seems to know.

A human teacher travels to another planet to teach aliens about Manifest Destiny, and the benefits of being colonized by humans — from textbooks created by his employers, a mining corporation. After he develops an understanding of alien lives, he decides to help the aliens to fight for themselves.

While conducting research in the remote country of Keteng, a Stanford grad student hears that another American has entered the country and is challenging the power structures in place.

When a young diplomat stationed in Saudi Arabia stands in for his superior to address a mysterious case involving family honor, things take a violent turn for the worse.

A Chinese American woman living in contemporary Wisconsin plans out a vacation to England rather China, her usual destination. The thought of abandoning her home country takes her back to the more difficult moments of her life, from her estrangement from her parents to her failed marriage.