On a beautiful, cool evening in a garden on Earth, Samara first encounters Galen, the retiring governor of the planet Marsat, who has come to revisit the home he left years before. Both have a special claim to this property and for a while they are suspicious of each other. But their meeting is timely, for Samara, at only 16 years old, has taken on the responsibilities of an International Director after her mother's sudden death. The problem is she doesn't know who to trust of her mother's former advisers, amongst them the Dolmen. who is becoming more and more popular among the people with his mesmeric, 'Nest Egg' religious cult.

This powerful and convincing story gives a finely balanced vision of Earth in the future seen through the eyes of it's brave and sensisitve young heroine and those of Galen, the expatriot and visitor.

Return to Earth isthe fifth science-fiction story by HM Hoover.