A human envoy arrives on a frigid, isolated planet to persuade its nations to join an interstellar confederation, but finds himself hampered by profound cultural and sexual differences.

A man’s dreams have the power to change the real world, and those around him — including a psychiatrist — must confront the consequences of shaping reality through unconscious wishes.

On a forested alien world, an occupying human logging colony treats the native population as subjugated labor. Tensions escalate after an especially brutal crime, and a native leader mobilizes resistance against the colonists.

Two contrasting societies — one organized around communal, anarchist principles and the other structured by more conventional hierarchy and market relations — come into contact.