Polluto 4

Deb Hoag opens with the title story ... It's short and, despite the transgressive subject matter, lighthearted.A"VerrataA" is the first gem of the issue. [John Hornor] Jacobs' harsh exploration of identity and free will is one of the longest stories here and deservedly so. It also has a heart.Marshall Payne's A"Dharma and BertA" concerns itself with one of the goddesses who's at home and feeling lonely. It's witty and fun in a A"men are from Mars, women are VenusA" sort of way.Rhys Hughes's knowingly filthy pastiche of monetary fraud [A"The Groin SnatcherA"] is another of the highlights here, and ... it's fun.Janett L. Grady's A"Faux Pas, DocA" is the short and effective story of an aging sex-bot in an age of moral repression ...The A"Highway GirlA" in Robert Lamb's even shorter story has revenge (or entrapment) on her mind, and she unpleasantly turns the tables on the man who attempts to rape her ... After a brutal start, the story then moves on to a much more interesting place.Steve Redwood's sober A"DamagedA" is a bleak look at the way men view women ... This frank and searching story has an excellent chance of making it into some of the Year's Best anthologies.Michael R. Colangelo's punky A"Steel Teeth and SyntheticsA" is ... lively adventure and well rendered ...There is a piece of surreal flash fiction from Frank Burton called A"The Day She MeltedA" that is smoothly written, accurately titled, and about a paragraph long ...This issue of Polluto is again a fine-looking magazine and ... it is still a pleasure to read.--Jim Steel, The Fix