The young Martian child looks up at their parent from bed, all tucked in from a morning of classes and an afternoon of helping out on the family hydroponic farm. Blinking sleepily, they clutch their stuffed toy and request, yawning, “Tell me a story.”

 

In another settlement, the children sit around their grandparents as a dust storm whips red debris against their windows. To calm their anxious nerves, Grandma recounts a tale she heard as a little girl when the colony was new.

 

A quote attributed to Albert Einstein states, “If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.” Imagination breeds innovation. And as we colonize the fourth rock from the sun, the kinds of stories we tell our children will develop from the experiences we have pushing into that final frontier.

 

Fairytales From Mars is an anthology collecting the fables, folktales and, of course, fairytales from the colonies dotting the red planet. It is speculative mythology at its finest and we’re challenging creators to imagine the kind of stories that might emerge when humanity finally starts calling Mars its home. Early children’s stories were morality tales designed to warn against the dangers of their environment, impart a moral lesson, or explain the unexplainable. These stories are handed down from generation to generation and life on Mars will be no different.

 

In the near-future, Scribner Mallard Hale, his robotic AI companion Hugh-2, and native Martian EG Kevvin journey from colony to colony collecting these stories. This is the Brothers Grimm… in SPAAAAAAAAAACE! The Martian as told by Hans Christian Andersen. What did young Martian Congressional Republic citizens hear before going to bed in The Expanse? 

 

Help us create a collection of tales that any Martian parent could use to send their little ones off to slumberland - the only plane connecting Earth and Mars.