When an alien spaceship lands on Earth in need of help, leaders of countries around the world help and house them, causing tension between humans and these costly guests.

Aliens land peacefully on Earth and promise to fix humans’ societal problems, but humans soon get so frustrated with them that they flee to other planets. The smaller Earth population ends up bringing positive change, but this emigration to other planets reveals that many other populations have fled these aliens for the same reason.

In a future Los Angeles burdened by overpopulation, a twelve-year-old boy hires an alien assassin to kill the man forcing an abortion on his mother.

Human detectives work to solve the mystery of who killed a human woman at an Earth-based alien embassy. They soon realize that human methods of solving mysteries come into conflict with the social customs of the aliens.

A newscaster recently arrived in space receives ominous advice from a jaded engineer: whatever you do, leave space because getting attracted to aliens will be the death of us all.

Extraterrestrial visitors promise solutions to America's financial, environmental, and energy problems - in exchange for the country's black citizens. A cultural struggle breaks out to determine whether the trade will be made.

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.

Assuming that they were here to invade, mankind massacred the aliens whose ships landed on Earth. Now, the aliens and humans have an uneasy peace together. The aliens who landed on earth love to fly kites. One kite-maker sells them despite harassment from skinheads who hate the aliens and anyone who does business with them.

On an intergalactic spaceship, two runaway servants turned mercenaries agree to a dangerous mission that will take them back to the planet from which they escaped—in return for a shot at a clean record and a peaceful life.

The asteroid work crews don't have much to do but tell tall tales to each other. One man tells a particularly riveting account of an expedition where he met a strange parasitic species that inhabits human bodies and barely escaped unscathed—or did he?