The Lizard King: Literature-based trends and Author Timothy Wolff
By: N.A. Betts
I was in a coffee shop the other day when I heard an unmistakable sound of a repeated word that bored itself momentarily into my ears, but forever into memory:
“Lizard. Lizard. Lizard…”
On and on it went, no iteration of the word any less special than the last. I couldn’t understand the motley crew of young and old alike, crowded around the wooden circle to watch a little green creature on the screen of their phones, expressing the need for the summoning of lizards.
I began to wonder how something like this could be born, a phenomenon that captured the hearts, minds, attention spans, and ADHD of generations–a craze not seen since the release of Pokémon GO way back in 2016. But it was then I saw it, poking out under the arm of an elderly gentleman choking down a donut covered in powdered sugar:
Platinum Tinted Darkness by Timothy Wolff
I wasn’t about to rush out of there. I had time to kill before I picked my kids up from water aerobics, and so I dusted off the freshly fallen snow on the cover, revealing an epic battle between Morfydd Clark from The Rings of Power and an illustrated James Spader from a one-off monologue from The Office.
My curiosity getting the better of me, I slipped the book away from the table–all eyes still drawn to the little green eye-catcher adorning the screen of, now, every phone in the establishment. As I began to read through, I realized that this wasn’t some machination of Pixar at all. It wasn’t a movie trailer that drew together generations. It was a dapper, smoldering young author from Long Island, New York, by the name Timothy Wolff.
As I continued my journey through his words, I was introduced to the humid hellscape of Terrangus and its beautiful specimen of a warlord named Sardonyx. And the more I read, the more I began to understand. As if they’d crawled out from the gutter of the pages, one lizard after another arrived and took over the story, as the mention of the word began to echo in my ears:
“Lizard. Lizard. Lizard…”
I began to understand that I wasn’t dealing with a phenomenon at all. This wasn’t some fad, or some trend. This was here to stay. And in its gravitational pull I realized I’d come too far. I understood now that Sardonyx wasn’t just some character contrived in some creative haze of imagining. He stood in place of Timothy Wolf, the man who, with a single work at the beginning of a trilogy, became a legend who claimed his crown.
The echo grew louder as I realized that the little green lizard was the most GLORIOUS thing I’d ever seen. I got up, drug my chair over, and found a seat amongst the throng of the gathered; knowing I’d found my true calling.
All hail the GLORIOUS lizard king.
– 30 –
N.A. Betts
N.A. (Nick) Betts is a Canadian author of epic fantasy with a love for timeless storytelling. A Veteran of the Canadian Armed Forces, he crafts sweeping tales of good versus evil, drawing inspiration from Tolkien and other classic works of the genre. His stories are filled with tropes such as coming of age, self-discovery, and found family, while exploring themes of physical perseverance and mental resilience.
When he’s not busy creating new worlds, Nick can be found enjoying professional wrestling, diving into stories of the unexplained, or relaxing with some good jazz. He lives just outside Edmonton, Alberta, with his wife and their two cats, Bandit and Carter.
*All Porridge Report articles are satire and should be taken with humor in mind. If offense is taken, please let us know in the comments and we will rectify.
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