Review: Pick Your Potion by Ephiny Gale

 

I loved Ephiny Gale’s first collection of short stories, Next Curious Thing, and so I jumped at the chance for a review copy of her second, Pick Your Potion. It’s a worthy follow-up of strange and beautiful stories, by turns gentle and warm and then harrowing and brutal. The book’s back cover copy describes it as “a full apothecary’s bar of speculative stories,” and it’s an apt description. Gale showcases a range of moods, styles and genres in this book, ranging from science fiction to fantasy to horror and hybridities among these three.

 

Some of my favorite stories in this collection embrace warmth and comfort.  New lovers find one another on a divided generation spaceship in “Solace” and in a magical orchard in “The Orchard.” In other stories, old lovers find one another in different forms, or friends finally recognize the romantic spark between them. One of my favorites was “All the Times I’m Ten,” a twist on the “chosen one” trope that manages to feel both fresh and poignant.

 

Other tales lean heavier into darkness, even they invoke images of startling beauty. “The Candle-Queen” presents us with the image of young woman charged to forever carry a crown of sacred candles on her head, lest the world end.  And “When the Ice Comes In” is a chilling take on the tale of “The Little Match Girl,” which, like the original, contrasts images of cold and suffering with illusions of beauty.

 

Gale is also exquisite in evoking a sense of quiet unease. This is showcased in the collection’s opening tale, “CurioQueens,” in which a young girl is introduced to an addictive yet potentially deadly game. The narrative style remains mostly understated even as disasters occur, and it’s a quietly unsettling tale. This sense of unease is ratcheted up in the incredibly creepy “Nowhere, Australia,” a bizarre apocalyptic tale about a young group of people stranded in a desert compound with no memory of how they got there or where they were before. And unease explodes into full-blown horror in stories such as "Watchhouse,” an incredibly disturbing tale where lesbian women are abducted and hunted down for sport by disapproving, wealthy and powerful families.

 

Horrific dystopias, bizarre apocalypse tales, demons and witches and gentle tales of love. . . Gentleness coexists with horror and trauma, and sometimes lie close together in the very same story. Gale’s work is fresh, imaginative, and unique. She’s provided an Introduction chapter to this collection that offers commentary and inspiration notes for each story (something I love as a reader, as I’m always curious about author inspirations), as well as recipes for drinks to accompany each tale. I’d be remiss if I didn’t also mention the lovely interior illustrations in this book, created by Margot Jenner. In summary, this is a wonderful collection by a fresh, wildly imaginative voice, and a superb introduction to Ephiny Gale’s work if you’re not already familiar with it (and you should be!)

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