Pick Your Potion - Ephiny Gale - ★★★.¾

AUTHOR: Ephiny Gale

GENRE: Speculative Short Story Collection

PUBLICATION DATE: September 3, 2024

RATING: 3.8 stars.

In a Nutshell: An imaginative speculative story collection. I’m astounded by the author’s creativity! A few of the endings were not satisfying to me, but overall, I had a lot of fun reading this collection. Recommended to SFF fans!

This indie story collection has twenty-six stories over 226 pages. Thus there is a good number of stories and they don’t drag in tempo.

The introduction is presented in the form of a drinks menu, allowing us a glimpse into each story so that we can “Pick our potion.” The menu has the story title, a drink that goes with it, and a brief background to how and why the story was written. I appreciate that the author warns us that this section contains spoilers, but at the same time, I wonder why this creative menu had to include spoilers. Many of us don’t like reading spoilers, so there is no way for us to pick something from the menu while trying to jump over the unwanted bits. I’d have preferred this content to be present at the end of its respective story – ease of reading, direct connection with the story, and no worry of spoilers.

Continuing in the spirit of shuffling things around, I’d have loved for the content warnings to be present at the start than at the end of the book, though the Table of Contents does mention its being located at the end.

Now to the actual stories!

The twenty-six entries of this collection are genre-bending and genre-blending, spanning a range of SFF categories such as horror, sci-fi, epic fantasy, magical realism, speculative, and weird fiction. A majority of the tales have lesbian subplots, though none of the stories focuses solely on the romance. Every story has a strong woman protagonist, though not necessarily in a typical feminine role. Some of the tales are heartwarming, and some horrifying.

A majority of the plots had such unique concepts and such wondrous world-building that I’d love to an extended version of them, perhaps even a full-length novel. Some of the stories are presented in a different structure, such as research reports or journal entries. The writing is beautiful and lyrical, which is not a common feature of a speculative collection.

While I loved the plotlines and the imaginativeness of every story, some of the endings weren’t satisfying enough. I wanted more closure, or more continuation. Quite a few endings left me going 'Aargh! Tell me more! Don't leave me dangling here!'. The plot closures weren’t abrupt, but they didn’t allow me the feeling of relaxation, of knowing that the characters were happy/safe/fulfilled. (If the author is reading this: I NEED a continuation at least for 'Smol Animaux'!)

Every story is exceptional in its creativity. Even when a specific tale didn’t click that much with me, I was still mesmerised by the author’s wild imagination. A few of the stories in this collection can be read free on the author’s site. Perhaps you can try out some tales from there and see the brilliance of her mind.

As always, I rated the stories individually. Of the twenty-six stories, thirteen reached or crossed the 4-star mark. Most of the rest hovered between 3-3.5 stars. Some of these would have scored even higher had the finale clicked better with me. These were my top favourites with 4.5+ stars:

🌿 Overnight, a Forest Grew - A beautiful story that would even have made a wonderful fantasy novel. Loved the use of perfumes in this. - ⭐⭐⭐⭐✨

🌿 Light and Sleek and Strong - Weird and wacky and wonderful! - ⭐⭐⭐⭐✨

🌿 When The Ice Comes In - Such a beautiful, bittersweet story! I could actually feel the chill of the protagonist. - ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

🌿 This Is (Not) My Beautiful Cat - A cat story. With a surprise at the end. Loved the narrative structure and the ending. - ⭐⭐⭐⭐✨

🌿 Lovely Lilacs - Rarely does a sci-fi android story feel so heartwarming. An extra half-star for that last line. - ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

🌿 The Orchard - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory vibes, but with more and better magic. - ⭐⭐⭐⭐✨

🌿 Traces of Us, Hot Enough for Dinner – A horror groundhog-day story! I want to know so much more about the how’s and why's of this! - ⭐⭐⭐⭐✨

Honourable mentions with 4 stars:

☘️ CurioQueens - Jumanji vibes but even more dangerous and visceral

☘️ All the Times I'm Ten - A bittersweet story about a young human who just wants to be ten and normal. Would have loved this to be longer.

☘️ The Candle Queen - Another story that I wish had been longer. I'd have loved to know more about this world of magical wax and candle queens.

☘️ Last Text - That certainly didn't go the way I thought it would! 👀

☘️ La Vie En Mer - The travels of a space "ship" across many universes. Yet another example of the author's out-of-the-box imagination.

☘️ Smol Animaux - Such a fabulous story! Such a frustrating ending!

All in all, a highly recommended collection to every speculative short fiction lover. This indie novel will blow you away with its fantastical concepts. I can’t wait to read more by this author.

3.8 stars, based on the average of my ratings for each story.

My thanks to Foxgrove Press for providing the DRC of “Pick Your Potion” via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.