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No Fair Maidens from Earth to Mars
“How many words are there for 'dark?' Not nearly enough when it comes to Hill's clever collection of sci-fi horror that's dripping in cosmic dread. You may think twice before looking up at the stars.” — Robert P. Ottone, author of The Vile Thing We Created and the Bram Stoker Award-winning novel The Triangle
Wind chitters the trees, specter children laugh in the boughs and centuries later a similar wind races down the slopes Olympus Mons, barreling over the terraformed Martian horizons littered with corpses.
A collection of terrestrial to interstellar sci-fi horror traveling from pregnant, haunted lands of the dust bowl up to Mars’ basecamps where first contact does not go as planned, these nine stories span centuries, planets, and the space between with women as both victims and villains of circumstance. As humans progress off planet, a singular villain appears, a thread for keen observers to witness one long invasion. It has many forms, but ends with one message that Earth is special, and women more so.
Stories set in a shared in “Fruit of Womb” a family moves onto a farm that is heaven on earth, never knowing the price until they want to leave. “A Better Chimera for the Toxic Workplace” witnesses future Earth, burning to the point where people rely on genetic mutation to survive and women still deal with toxic workplaces and sexual harassment. Jumping ahead in space and time, “Spaceport Marte” sits in a high Mars orbit, where a mechanic becomes infected with an alien parasite that pushes her at the seams.
With five never-before-published stories, this collection leads readers to discover that, ultimately, there are No Fair Maidens from Earth to Mars.
Wind chitters the trees, specter children laugh in the boughs and centuries later a similar wind races down the slopes Olympus Mons, barreling over the terraformed Martian horizons littered with corpses.
A collection of terrestrial to interstellar sci-fi horror traveling from pregnant, haunted lands of the dust bowl up to Mars’ basecamps where first contact does not go as planned, these nine stories span centuries, planets, and the space between with women as both victims and villains of circumstance. As humans progress off planet, a singular villain appears, a thread for keen observers to witness one long invasion. It has many forms, but ends with one message that Earth is special, and women more so.
Stories set in a shared in “Fruit of Womb” a family moves onto a farm that is heaven on earth, never knowing the price until they want to leave. “A Better Chimera for the Toxic Workplace” witnesses future Earth, burning to the point where people rely on genetic mutation to survive and women still deal with toxic workplaces and sexual harassment. Jumping ahead in space and time, “Spaceport Marte” sits in a high Mars orbit, where a mechanic becomes infected with an alien parasite that pushes her at the seams.
With five never-before-published stories, this collection leads readers to discover that, ultimately, there are No Fair Maidens from Earth to Mars.
- GenresHorror
213 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 11, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
January 26, 2026
No Fair Maidens from Earth to Mars by Rowan Hill is a collection of awesome sci-fi horror that has such an impressive range, each tale centered on powerful, brave women.
The tales in this collection highlight strength in many forms; there’s resilience, defiance, survival, quiet courage, and so much more. There’s also a wide emotional range across the collection, and every story brings something different while still feeling connected. The structure of how each tale is organized within the whole collection enhances the themes themselves, not just the reading experience.
What a great celebration of women’s strength told through beautifully varied and horrific stories!
This is a collection that feels intentional. I don’t quite know how else to summarize the feeling I have other than that! I highly recommend grabbing a copy of this one!
Check out my full review here: https://www.ericarobynreads.com/no-fa...
The tales in this collection highlight strength in many forms; there’s resilience, defiance, survival, quiet courage, and so much more. There’s also a wide emotional range across the collection, and every story brings something different while still feeling connected. The structure of how each tale is organized within the whole collection enhances the themes themselves, not just the reading experience.
What a great celebration of women’s strength told through beautifully varied and horrific stories!
This is a collection that feels intentional. I don’t quite know how else to summarize the feeling I have other than that! I highly recommend grabbing a copy of this one!
Check out my full review here: https://www.ericarobynreads.com/no-fa...
December 15, 2024
This collection covers a broad range of subjects and settings, all of them dark. The stories on earth move from cursed land to time loops to sacrifices to an ancient one to a really bad on-line date, while the stories in space show the extremes that humans are forced to in order to survive a dying earth and how the sameness of space can lead to madness.
The first and longest tale, Fruit of Womb, is a slow burn, with hints of the wrongness of the setting building to the inevitable end. A masterful increase in tension. Other strong entries are Void, which shows how important a little thing like color (or lack thereof) can be to maintaining one's sanity, and A Better Chimera for the Toxic Workplace, which mixes body horror with the sexism of a male-oriented workplace.
This is a strong collection, and I will be looking for more from this author. Highly recommend.
The first and longest tale, Fruit of Womb, is a slow burn, with hints of the wrongness of the setting building to the inevitable end. A masterful increase in tension. Other strong entries are Void, which shows how important a little thing like color (or lack thereof) can be to maintaining one's sanity, and A Better Chimera for the Toxic Workplace, which mixes body horror with the sexism of a male-oriented workplace.
This is a strong collection, and I will be looking for more from this author. Highly recommend.
April 6, 2025
“God had forsaken Earth and left for another planet with better unused resources.”
While I am not a fan of science fiction per se, I AM a fan of smart story-telling and witty prose, and Hill fires on all cylinders here in both accounts. Each story drugs the reader, tosses them into a sack of kaleidoscopic nightmare, and methodically runs an emery board over every nerve. Simply put, this collection is creepy as hell.
Standouts in the lineup include “Void,” the only story set solidly in a world devoid of color, and “A Better Chimera for the Toxic Workplace,” a quietly feminist yarn set in a Mad Maxian corner of a dying planet whose residents are replete with body modification. My favorite of the collection is “Fruit of the Womb” which boasts a storyline of slowly growing dread that is one part historical horror, one part parasitic /slash/ sentient environment terror.
While I am not a fan of science fiction per se, I AM a fan of smart story-telling and witty prose, and Hill fires on all cylinders here in both accounts. Each story drugs the reader, tosses them into a sack of kaleidoscopic nightmare, and methodically runs an emery board over every nerve. Simply put, this collection is creepy as hell.
Standouts in the lineup include “Void,” the only story set solidly in a world devoid of color, and “A Better Chimera for the Toxic Workplace,” a quietly feminist yarn set in a Mad Maxian corner of a dying planet whose residents are replete with body modification. My favorite of the collection is “Fruit of the Womb” which boasts a storyline of slowly growing dread that is one part historical horror, one part parasitic /slash/ sentient environment terror.
October 13, 2024
Like Hill's novel Foxfire, this short story collection draws much of its strength from evocative settings. The stark beauty, mystery and desolation of a remote and seemingly timeless orchard, Antarctic micro-island, vast Australian desert, and the not-quite-godless void outer space inform and define the characters. Outsiders all, they are products of their environment, adapting or devolving into existential crisis as they are investigated / invaded by external forces. Starting with a nod to Ray Bradbury's "The Scythe" and ending with (I like to think) a nod to John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars, this collection is an impressive blend of cosmic horror, psychological horror, eco-horror and body horror. Woman is the warmest place to hide...
January 5, 2025
First of all, what a beautiful cover. Secondly, what a shockingly cosmic collection of horror stories.
Rowan Hill has created a strong group of stories with the underlying theme of a maybe disdainful cosmic evil watching and manipulating the masses on earth and beyond.
The book starts off so beautifully heartbreaking with Fruit of Womb where an Eden-like farm demands much for its bounty.
The last paragraph of Aurora Australis took my breath away. My god.
Teen Spirit and Swarm were truly horrific.
The collection continues with bangers in Come in Camp Zuma, Void, and the terrifyingly sexy Spaceport Marte.
The collection ends with Gods of Mars, and this story culminates in the voice of an evil, greedy intelligence that was so insidious, so disconcerting that I reread it twice.
Rowan Hill has created a strong group of stories with the underlying theme of a maybe disdainful cosmic evil watching and manipulating the masses on earth and beyond.
The book starts off so beautifully heartbreaking with Fruit of Womb where an Eden-like farm demands much for its bounty.
The last paragraph of Aurora Australis took my breath away. My god.
Teen Spirit and Swarm were truly horrific.
The collection continues with bangers in Come in Camp Zuma, Void, and the terrifyingly sexy Spaceport Marte.
The collection ends with Gods of Mars, and this story culminates in the voice of an evil, greedy intelligence that was so insidious, so disconcerting that I reread it twice.
August 28, 2024
“No Fair Maidens from Earth to Mars” is crafted with elegant prose and storytelling and embroidered with well-placed accents of grotesquerie. Rowan Hill delicately weaves a timeline of separate threads that stand strong on their own, but also interweave to create a tapestry of horror/sci-fi, a fabric of stories bending and curving with space-time. What a thoughtful and entertaining collection!
February 19, 2025
Wonderful and tense series of sci fi horror stories! My personal favorite is Swarm!
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews