Lon Prater

- Just found out that Retro Spec: Tales of Fantasy and Nostalgia can now be purchased at bn.com and Amazon.com.  Retro Spec includes my story “All That Remains Is The Middle” as well as good stuff set from 1920 to 1980 by many other fine writers.

- Also, for the ebook crowd, I’m cutting the prices on my two sampler collections by 50%, now through the end of 2010.  Use coupon code DY32X to get Roads Like These for $.99 and coupon code ZP85R to get the same discount on Legwork.

*New podcast available! A dramatic reading of my short story “Symphony for the Aligning Stars” is now up at Theme and Variations, Opus Two.  I had a lot of fun recording this one.

*Short story! “The Way of Cold Teeth” will be published in The Midnight Diner at the end of August. Here’s how it starts:

Lieutenant Croaker Thomson was a decorated Union scout, a regular churchgoer (when he could make it, anyway), and–despite those upstanding details–a wanted man. He was also less than a day ahead of the damn Pinkerton, and starting to wonder if maybe he was getting to be a little too old for ducking and dodging across half the Appalachians on foot.

Pre-order The Midnight Diner #3 here.

*Another Short Story! Also heard from Tim Deal at Shroud Magazine. Issue #9 should be rolling off the presses by the end of the month as well, with “Last Rites in the Big Green Empty” as part of its horrific menu.  Here’s a taste:

Until the Chaplain showed up, none of us stopped to wonder if we were doing any wrong. I say that now and people laugh, spit, rear back and swing at me. But it’s true. Until the Chaplain showed up, not one of us wanted to see that the enemy weren’t so small because they were malnourished. That they weren’t cowardly men dolled up in women’s clothes for the sake of ambushing us. It took the Chaplain coming to make me see what kind of monster was in charge of Lieutenant Cavanaugh and all the rest of us. But even then it was too late.

Preorder Shroud #9 here.

*I’ve been Tuckerized! Last but not least, I’m happy to plug my friend Mary Robinette Kowal’s debut novel Shades of Milk and Honey, which takes a swing at answering the question “What if Jane Austen had written a fantasy novel?”  I’m especially tickled that she used my name for a character within, and by just who that character is.  Sound mysterious and amusing?  Pick up a copy and see for yourself!

*Short story “The Atrocities of King George” is now appearing in the June 2010 Ideomancer.

*Poem “Desperata (or The Desiderata of H.P. Lovecraft)” is available in the acclaimed anthology Dark Faith.

*I’m interviewed in Apex Online about “Desperata” here.