"Tales from Ancient and Future Times" collects five stories from fantasy and science fiction writer Kate MacLeod: the science fiction story "Taren and Keui", tale of two alien beings finding a way out of a zero sum game; the dark fantasy tale "The Story for the Letters", about a little girl and an ancient evil; the science fiction story "AI: Aesir Intelligence", where the sole survivor of a shuttle crash stays alive on a hostile world with the guidance of some unconventional babysitters; the science fiction story "Upon the Lonesome Wild" about a woman meant to be the matriarch of a far reaching clan on a newly discovered world who instead finds herself alone on a dying one; and the science fiction novelette "The Inscrutable Visages of the Sowmyatha" where a young officer finds it easier to communicate with a rocklike alien race than her human teammates.