Instead of the usual take-off into space, these stories concentrate on strange happenings here on earth. Two competing radio hams import a sweet singer from another planet; some particles from a pond almost conquer man; a small country's physician finds the perfect antidote to a larger power's ambitions; a beauty shop's hair-drier undergoes a sinister metamorphosis; and the editor provides the plum in an uncanny story of an unearthly of an .