Anthony Ronald

This tale is part in a long series of "Kwatz" stories, a sort of elemental pantheon of Spritz, which Ron Cross has been working on during the last couple of years. “Air Kwatz,” like all of his work, rather defies introduction. Suffice to say that what follows is highly original, beautifully rendered, and happily irreverent.

This startlingly beautiful and exotic story has to do with one of the most wondrous and frightening things in the world: growing up. Such simple words for such a complex, weighty, never-ending process. It carries with it the realization of responsibilities, the maddening loss of one kind of security and the sometimes-reluctant gain of another, and so much isolation. “New Olympus” is undoubtedly about a good deal more than the loss of one’s childhood. Cross’s stories, his visions of life, are as complex as the finest poetry and similarly leave the reader with singular, recognizable, yet hard-to-define feelings. This one left us feeling awash in admiration.

"The bald fact of the matter is that there are few writers who can pull off utter confusion the way Cross can. And yet we are given to understand that Cross is an upright, reasonable sort, who, judging from the stories that have appeared under his name, turns onto writing the way a flower child turns onto psychedelics. For that matter few writers would dare commit a story like this to paper—who but Cross would have guessed that the adventures of a star-crossed lizard would make such exciting reading? Sometimes the best fiction is inexplicable. We think you’ll find “The Adventures of Lance the Lizard” inexplicably joyful. —And that is a recommendation we seldom make."