The “Forgotten World” is Earth. Having laid the foundation for “Galactic Civilization,” the Earth has used up all its energy resources (the story accepts the hypothesis that the main raw material for producing atomic energy is copper). The hero of the story, space engineer Laird Carlin, is sent to Earth to undergo treatment. He has star fever - a kind of mental disorder that arose from a long stay in outer space. This disease can only be cured under earthly conditions. Carlin needs to stay on Earth for more than a year and lead the life of an ordinary person. As soon as Carlin arrived on Earth and tried to find a suitable home, he was met with outright hostility and hostility. By chance, in a conversation with a young man, Johnny Land, Carlin let slip that he was a space engineer, and the lame young man unexpectedly invited him to live with them. So Laird Carlin appeared in the Land family, which consisted of four people: old Grump Land, Johnny's brother Harb and sister Marn.

The story was translated into Russian and published in 1990 by the Tver publishing house "Itil". However, this was a significantly shortened version - the first two chapters were missing, and the last ninth chapter was almost halved. Below is the full text: chapters 3–8 translated by V. Bogoyavlensky; Chapters 1, 2 and 9 translated by A. Lapudnev.