Latest Releases
Polluto has packed a snorkel and will head to Atlantis for a quick visit to fight killer mermaids and their legions of underwater nasties. Unfortunately we
forgot our passport and bank statements. Mind if we borrow yours?
Showdown in ‘High Noon’ between the Sheriff and the Octopus Kid from Michelle Mead.
Demons without and within in ‘Greg’s Life, the King James Version’ from Erin Cashier.
A harbour town infected by periwinkles, and mermaids in the Thames from Peter Lavelle and Helen Harvey.
Gender roles, prosthetic male-enhancements and Wundermants in Susan Soloman’s ‘Honker’.
Poems of exploration, transformation and identity from Kristine Ong Muslim, Christian Ward and Jane Chakravarthy.
Undersea grand larceny, Atlantis, and Lovecraftian deep-sea sects from Malon Edwards, Edward Morris and Robert Lamb.
How freak jellyfish mutation is so out this season in ‘The June Parrott Scrapbook’ by Victoria Truslow.
Homeless shelter abductions, portals and wormholes; the aliens are emerging – and they want your vote! Stories from Rena Sherwood and Alexander Hay.
An exploration of personal struggle against abuse and victimisation from Ahimsa Timoteo Bodhrán.
And more stories of mutation, transformation, misunderstandings, fear and intolerance from Kurt Newton, Annabel Wigoder, Yvette Managan, and Erik Williams.
Showdown in ‘High Noon’ between the Sheriff and the Octopus Kid from Michelle Mead.
Demons without and within in ‘Greg’s Life, the King James Version’ from Erin Cashier.
A harbour town infected by periwinkles, and mermaids in the Thames from Peter Lavelle and Helen Harvey.
Gender roles, prosthetic male-enhancements and Wundermants in Susan Soloman’s ‘Honker’.
Poems of exploration, transformation and identity from Kristine Ong Muslim, Christian Ward and Jane Chakravarthy.
Undersea grand larceny, Atlantis, and Lovecraftian deep-sea sects from Malon Edwards, Edward Morris and Robert Lamb.
How freak jellyfish mutation is so out this season in ‘The June Parrott Scrapbook’ by Victoria Truslow.
Homeless shelter abductions, portals and wormholes; the aliens are emerging – and they want your vote! Stories from Rena Sherwood and Alexander Hay.
An exploration of personal struggle against abuse and victimisation from Ahimsa Timoteo Bodhrán.
And more stories of mutation, transformation, misunderstandings, fear and intolerance from Kurt Newton, Annabel Wigoder, Yvette Managan, and Erik Williams.
Finally bound into one collection, twenty three stories of creation and mutation. From twisted fairy tales and grubby nights to circus freaks and insect
bites, these tales of depravity reveal the bride in her most scabrous form.
“Sometimes stories that I’ve used to mythologize my childhood resurface in my mind as actual memories … Perhaps if you tell a story enough times, it will become
the truth.”
This admission by Mark Greensleeves, the compulsive liar in the story, Some Facts About Me, sums up Frank Burton’s sharp, surreal and subversive short story collection, A History of Sarcasm. The seventeen stories in this collection blur the boundaries between fact and fantasy through a series of obsessive characters and their skewed versions of reality. Among them are a man who insists on living every aspect of his life in alphabetical order, a girl who believes she is receiving secret messages through the TV, a paranoiac who is pursued by an army of giant lobsters, and an academic who turns into a cat.
This admission by Mark Greensleeves, the compulsive liar in the story, Some Facts About Me, sums up Frank Burton’s sharp, surreal and subversive short story collection, A History of Sarcasm. The seventeen stories in this collection blur the boundaries between fact and fantasy through a series of obsessive characters and their skewed versions of reality. Among them are a man who insists on living every aspect of his life in alphabetical order, a girl who believes she is receiving secret messages through the TV, a paranoiac who is pursued by an army of giant lobsters, and an academic who turns into a cat.
Rhys Hughes plumbs the depths of perversity and satire in the shockingly brilliant novel Mister Gum, which follows the adventures of the world's most
notorious creative writing tutor and his friends. On his way he discovers haunted hymens, Fellatio Nelson and Canon Alberic's Photo Album.
“A desperately needed antidote to nerd-friendly space fiction and inklingoid fantasy.” — THE GUARDIAN
“Hughes’ fiction has few parallels anywhere in the world. In some alternate universe with a better sense of justice, his work triumph-antly parades across all bestseller lists.” —JEFF VANDERMEER
“A desperately needed antidote to nerd-friendly space fiction and inklingoid fantasy.” — THE GUARDIAN
“Hughes’ fiction has few parallels anywhere in the world. In some alternate universe with a better sense of justice, his work triumph-antly parades across all bestseller lists.” —JEFF VANDERMEER
Armed with a Glock and a bottle of Jack, accompanied by her adventurous Grandma Rose, Eve starts on a cross-country trip to find her hero, and to ask him to
explain the meaning of life to her. Along the way, she escapes murderous circus performers, becomes a Girl Scout cookie and meets a Wild Man in a sharkskin
suit--just a few of the adventures that open Eve's eyes and change her perspective on life.
' . . . an exhilarating ride, a kind of CANDIDE in reverse, as the protagonist Eve, as unpredictable as Boadicea on a bad hair-AND-Roman day, learns to see through her false shell, which far from protecting her has imprisoned and impoverished her. Every scene (with not a single wasted word daring to show itself) packs a witty punch . . . A really remarkable first novel, which I can fully recommend to the cool and the uncool alike.' —STEVE REDWOOD (Author of Fisher of Devils)
' . . . an exhilarating ride, a kind of CANDIDE in reverse, as the protagonist Eve, as unpredictable as Boadicea on a bad hair-AND-Roman day, learns to see through her false shell, which far from protecting her has imprisoned and impoverished her. Every scene (with not a single wasted word daring to show itself) packs a witty punch . . . A really remarkable first novel, which I can fully recommend to the cool and the uncool alike.' —STEVE REDWOOD (Author of Fisher of Devils)
Steve Redwood's own selection of his short fiction. Twenty-six unique stories that stretch the meaning of ‘eclectic’, bound together in one forbidden tome for
the first time. Covering most genres, and moving from grim, cruel, and tragic: broken women living on shelves in a library, a Greek goddess and the monster
she created meeting in a final showdown, an alien trapped in Patagonia nurturing itself on sickness and religious gullibility to survive and an exiled
Martian fixated on Dana Scully. All this, with a few devils, saints, cloned messiahs, witches, and well-educated zombies thrown in for good measure.
“Bubbles of darkness trapped in fluid humour, like hashish suspended in golden wine, a heady and often disturbing brew.” — RHYS HUGHS
“Bubbles of darkness trapped in fluid humour, like hashish suspended in golden wine, a heady and often disturbing brew.” — RHYS HUGHS
Cutlass-wielding youths in tweed suits prowl the dingy red light districts of Mars. Intrepid colonialist explorers hunt giant squid in the clockwork submarines
of an alternate past . . . and Polluto rises from the mists, casting ghostly phosphorescence through the gloom, and calls you. It's time to reach out and take
the fruit. It's time to wind yourself up and escape.
The toys want out and they're hungry for knowledge!
The toys want out and they're hungry for knowledge!
Polluto has donned its frilliest frock, slapped on the make-up and stepped into a pair of heeled ruby slippers to fight terrorist munchkins on the road to Oz.
Grab your baseball bat and join the fray!
Cross-dressing and black power in Wonderland, with Deb Hoag's 'Queer & Loathing on the Yellow Brick Road'
Satirical stories from Polluto regulars Rhys Hughes and Steve Redwood
Robot sex toys in 'The Androidgenous Zone' by Andrew Hook and Allen Ashley (Elastic Press)
The seeds of transformation in D.W. Green's 'Willow Within'
A look at 'The Day Hermeneutics Died' by David McLean
Steampunk prostitution in Alex MacFarlane's 'A Shade of Yellow'
Dwarves, twisted fairytale forests and escapees in Jim Steel's 'The Bears in the Wood'
Cross-dressing and black power in Wonderland, with Deb Hoag's 'Queer & Loathing on the Yellow Brick Road'
Satirical stories from Polluto regulars Rhys Hughes and Steve Redwood
Robot sex toys in 'The Androidgenous Zone' by Andrew Hook and Allen Ashley (Elastic Press)
The seeds of transformation in D.W. Green's 'Willow Within'
A look at 'The Day Hermeneutics Died' by David McLean
Steampunk prostitution in Alex MacFarlane's 'A Shade of Yellow'
Dwarves, twisted fairytale forests and escapees in Jim Steel's 'The Bears in the Wood'
Issue 3 looks at snuff, sex, violence and videotape. With a guest appearance by Jack the Ripper.
Sex, death and videotape in Deb Hoag's genetically-modified skin-flick perversion. Transdimensional, bisexual madness by Marshall Payne. Cross-pollenating, unitarian sex-mastery in J. Michael Shell's unsettling 'Fallout'. Punning lingus and speculative fiction's answer to Viz, in Rhys Hughes' 'The Groin Scratcher'. Roadkill rape revenge and other wet dreams, in Robert Lamb's 'Highway Girl'. Sex slave libraries in Steve Redwood's 'Damaged'. The (literal) heat of passion in 'The Day She Melted' by Frank Burton. Cybernetic crises in Michael R. Colangelo's 'Steel Teeth and Synthetics'.
Sex, death and videotape in Deb Hoag's genetically-modified skin-flick perversion. Transdimensional, bisexual madness by Marshall Payne. Cross-pollenating, unitarian sex-mastery in J. Michael Shell's unsettling 'Fallout'. Punning lingus and speculative fiction's answer to Viz, in Rhys Hughes' 'The Groin Scratcher'. Roadkill rape revenge and other wet dreams, in Robert Lamb's 'Highway Girl'. Sex slave libraries in Steve Redwood's 'Damaged'. The (literal) heat of passion in 'The Day She Melted' by Frank Burton. Cybernetic crises in Michael R. Colangelo's 'Steel Teeth and Synthetics'.
Apocalypses & Garden Furniture examines the armagedden myths of today, from zombies to crime to social upheaval. Grab a deck chair and sit back as the world
falls apart!
Jeff VanderMeer on Darfur, death by sea monsters and the state of counterculture. Rhys Hughes with a lament about prog rock and the horrors of Julie Burchill. Steve Readwood's satiric Highlander parody. Extreme horror writer and publisher of Chimericana Books, Mike Philbin, with a sexual-apocalyptic tale. Deb Hoag with a pair of humorous science fiction musings on the End. Chet Gottfried with the Norse kink-fest. Adam Lowe's phantasmagoric story of ecological transformation and seual annihilation.
Jeff VanderMeer on Darfur, death by sea monsters and the state of counterculture. Rhys Hughes with a lament about prog rock and the horrors of Julie Burchill. Steve Readwood's satiric Highlander parody. Extreme horror writer and publisher of Chimericana Books, Mike Philbin, with a sexual-apocalyptic tale. Deb Hoag with a pair of humorous science fiction musings on the End. Chet Gottfried with the Norse kink-fest. Adam Lowe's phantasmagoric story of ecological transformation and seual annihilation.
Our Spectrum Award winning first issue had the very loose theme of Post-natal Depression & the Mysterons. Here we set out to turn generic conventions and
popular culture on its head.
Fresh stories from Jeff VanderMeer, Steve Redwood and Rhys Hughes.
Artwork from Vince Lock, notable illustrator of 2000AD, The Sandman and Deadworld.
A column about life with heroin from underground poet RC Edrington.
The first music and culture column from Micci Oaten of alt-rock band, Paparazzi Whore.
Mark Fickett, Dave Migman and Kurt Huggins & Zelda Devon providing colour artwork throughout.
A vibrant mix of unknown talent, bringing you the best in alternative culture.
Fresh stories from Jeff VanderMeer, Steve Redwood and Rhys Hughes.
Artwork from Vince Lock, notable illustrator of 2000AD, The Sandman and Deadworld.
A column about life with heroin from underground poet RC Edrington.
The first music and culture column from Micci Oaten of alt-rock band, Paparazzi Whore.
Mark Fickett, Dave Migman and Kurt Huggins & Zelda Devon providing colour artwork throughout.
A vibrant mix of unknown talent, bringing you the best in alternative culture.
In January 1998, a family of five moved into a flat on a small estate in Beeston, West Yorkshire. By November of the same year they had fled, with their lives
and nerves in tatters. What happened to the Walkingtons during their time there to cause such a turn-around in what was once such a humorous, close family. In
their own words, three of the five members of the Walkington family detail their lives at the time. Eleven Terrible Months is a fiction novel that you won't
forget in a hurry.
"Amityville Horror meets Shameless . . . Chilling but not gratuitously sick. Much is left to the reader's imagination--which of course makes it all the more creepy . . . a gripping read." - Telegraph & Argus
"Amityville Horror meets Shameless . . . Chilling but not gratuitously sick. Much is left to the reader's imagination--which of course makes it all the more creepy . . . a gripping read." - Telegraph & Argus
Lucy's Monster is a dark, disturbing read documenting a celebrity couple's fall from grace. Within the space of a month the lives of this unsuspecting couple
are completely shattered, with drug abuse and schizophrenia playing a major part in their tragic and untimely downfall.R. L. Royle adopts a unique writing
style that brings the reader and writer into the story as characters themselves, making this harrowing novel an all around unforgettable rollercoaster of a
book.
" . . . [Lucy's Monster] delves into a world where relationships are charred by drugs, violence and mental illness. Moreover, it's the description of Lucy's latent schizophrenia which provides the novel with its most revealing, shocking content." - Lianne Steinberg, The Big Issue in the North
" . . . [Lucy's Monster] delves into a world where relationships are charred by drugs, violence and mental illness. Moreover, it's the description of Lucy's latent schizophrenia which provides the novel with its most revealing, shocking content." - Lianne Steinberg, The Big Issue in the North