The residents of a small town are excited when a flaming meteor lands in the hills, until they discover it is the first of many transport devices from Mars bringing an army of invaders invincible to any man-made weapon, even the atomic bomb.

A Victorian Englishman travels to the far future and finds that humanity has divided into two hostile species.

The world is delighted when a spacecraft containing a crew made up of the world's astronauts lands on the moon, but are shocked when the astronauts discover an old British flag and a document declaring that the moon is taken for Queen Victoria proving that the astronauts were not the first men on the moon.

The story of a century: a decades-long second World War leaves plague and anarchy, then a rational state rebuilds civilization and attempts space travel.