The Potion and Other Perilous Libations - Paperback

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by Matias Travieso-Diaz (Author)

"Would you give up your mind and perhaps your freedom to add more months to your life?"

This is the ultimate question posed in the title story of this collection of dark tales with settings around the world and times from the distant past to the terrifying future. We are taken to realms as remote as a bloody afternoon of games in the Roman Colosseum and as close as the addled mind of a drug addict, with characters and situations made more dreadful by being entirely plausible.

A warrior watches his captors appease the gods with human sacrifices during a solar eclipse; a man trades his smile for a night of pleasure during Venice's Carnival and tries to recover it; a pre-Columbian man from a city threatened by Aztec conquest seeks assistance from a cryptid, who offers help at a steep cost.

We'll learn that no matter the time period or the location, horror is a part of every culture and is universal. It reminds us that anyone's life can be at risk, whether by accident, by chance, or personally chosen.

So perhaps the question changes:
What would you give up to survive these horrors?
Or would you want to survive at all?

"The Potion and Other Perilous Libations, a selection of some of the best of Matias Travieso-Diaz's over one hundred and sixty published short stories, is the thinking person's collection of fantasy, horror, and science fiction tales... Matias Travieso-Diaz continues to distinguish himself as one of the leading short story writers in the United States." Alex Ferrate, peer review

"No matter how bizarre, strange, or twisted the story, Travieso-Diaz's living, breathing characters are the life's blood of the tale... there's more than enough wonder and dread for any fan of horror or dark fantasy." Jason J. McCuiston, author of Project Notebook and The Last Star Warden series

"[Matias Travieso-Diaz's] stories remind readers the world can be a very scary place indeed." Adrian Ludens, author of The Tension of a Coming Storm

"Mr. Travieso-Diaz's short stories are like the bloody news photograph you know you should not look at, but click on anyway... [he] leads you to the realization that terror begins in the familiar places, the hearth, the school, and the office, metastasizes into the terrors that haunt us collectively, and transforms banal, complacent souls into monsters." Alex Ferrate, peer review

"The imagination that Matias brings to us through his stories is a treasure worth savoring." Paul Gaukler, peer review

"The author has tucked a burr in our souls and left us itching and squirming. And that is as it should be." Stephen Kimmerling, peer review

Number of Pages: 216

Dimensions: 0.49 x 8 x 5 IN

Publication Date: April 09, 2025