With eight short stories and novellas—including three original to this collection—Galactic North imparts the centuries-spanning events that have produced the dark and turbulent world of Revelation Space.

The eight stories are:
Great Wall of Mars.
Glacial.
A Spy in Europa.
Weather.
Dilation Sleep.
Grafenwalder's Bestiary.
Nightingale.
Galactic North.

Reynolds states in the afterword to the collection that the stories are set in rough chronological order, with "Great Wall of Mars" occurring around AD 2200, whilst Galactic North extends to AD 40 000