Prison inmates are told that they're being sent to scope out a new Earth for mankind to move to, but when they "come back" they find out they have just been play-testing a new virtual reality video game. Prison inmates are used to test a new video game which would have them inhabit a virtually real new planet, but they believe they are truly being sent to another solar system. When they realize that they've just been playing a game, there are long-term psychological impacts.

In the far future, a Welsh woman temporarily moves to a space colony on a distant planet with her husband, Owen. The woman regals her space-born daughter with tales of the wonders of Earth, and her daughter develops a great longing for Earth that eventually puts her life at risk.

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.

Tired of being deceived and humiliated by people that he trusted, a Swedish-American man decides to leave civilization behind and live alone on an island forever. However, his paradise quickly turns into hell, and he is forced to realize that history always repeats itself.

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 austere farmstead on the distant planet O, two lovers must find a way to fool their fellow citizens and satisfy a complicated series of marriage rites so that their forbidden love may last forever.

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?

An explorer tells the tale of his time on another planet before making a strange request.

In a faraway future, humans have sunk to the bottom of the food chain, with animals leading society and taking charge of the world. Despite animals' hatred for humans, a smart, observant horse becomes interested in a strange human girl, one who doesn't seem to fit in with her group.

In a dystopic future on Earth, as a woman comes home from vacation, she hears about a continent emerging from the sea as old ones sink, and returns to find her husband released from Rehabilitation Camp. He and his fellow researchers discover how to make a “sun tap” to channel the sun’s energy into power, but then he is again forced away by the government, into a hospital.