The collection presents stories by major American science fiction writers, written mainly in the 40s and 50s. These works are united by the idea of the greatness and eternity of life in the Universe; the authors’ imagination depicts diverse and bizarre forms of life, various stages of developed earthly and extraterrestrial civilizations. However, in each story there is an idea about the possibility and necessity of contact and mutual understanding between thinking beings, about the unity of all living things.