The title story, First Light, original to the book and revised in 2017, is the deep space launch of the first astronomical explorer ship in a series. The nine other stories-previously published in Interzone, Weird Tales, and Tomorrow SF, among others-range from the Southern gothic of The Woman Who Knew Better to the hard science fiction of Manbap to the present day fantasy of Greenwife, and include a light-hearted version of a great legend, One Summer Evening.