Constructor:Jules P. Markey
Relative difficulty:Medium
![]()
THEME: MIDDLE AGE (34A: Crisis time, for some ... or a hint to each of the circled words)— circled letters in the "middle" of four answers are all words that can precede "age" ...
Theme answers:
![]()
This is poor on several levels. The basic theme conceit isn't stunning (circled squares in the middle of theme answers spell a bunch of things that have something in common, revealer does something hamfistedly punny, tada!—) but it's the kind of familiar, been-done-before, salvageable concept that should be able to get you to Average if you work at it—that is, if your themers are great and your hidden words make a tight set and are properly "hidden." And while you could argue that the themers themselves are perfectly fine answers (all 15s), beyond that, things fall apart. As I've said more, good craftsmanship standards in a "hidden words" puzzle like this dictate that the "hidden" word should touch all elements in the theme answers, i.e. normally, stretch across two words (the way ICE stretches across ELECTRIC and ENGINES in the first themer). But here, not one but *two* of these damned things fail here, and one fails terribly. At least STONE is "hidden" somewhere (between LOST and ONE'S), even if it does have MARBLES just hanging out there in the wind; IRON isn't even trying. It just sits inside ADIRONDACK, cleverness nil, CHAIR just waving from the sidelines. Further, and worse, the set of "hidden" words goes yes yes yes *clunk*, i.e. three actual "ages" and then stupid figurative crystal-wearing bad-music-suffused NEW. No. No to NEW.
The fill is the repulsively rich icing on this lopsided cake. I circled all the tired-to-bad fill and my puzzle printout has a nearly unbroken swath of ink all the way from the SW to the NE corner. Grid is very choppy, esp. toward the middle, and the three- and four-word onslaught gets pretty dire. Once again, I could tell before exiting the NW that things were going to be bad. It was slightly sad how easily I was able to put in the dreadful IREFUL / RELEE crossing. Puzzle's can't even sneak up on me with its blecchness any more. You can just say some of the lines straight across to get a feel for how bad the fill is. OBE EOS MCML!! POS POO RAS CEO! POO on top of "ERES TU," indeed. So, to sum up, workable concept, poorly worked, filled like a landfill.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Relative difficulty:Medium
Theme answers:
- ELECTRIC ENGINES (ICE)
- LOST ONE'S MARBLES (STONE)
- ADIRONDACK CHAIR (IRON)
- MACHINE WASHABLE (NEW)
nounnoun: odorant; plural noun: odorants
• • •
The fill is the repulsively rich icing on this lopsided cake. I circled all the tired-to-bad fill and my puzzle printout has a nearly unbroken swath of ink all the way from the SW to the NE corner. Grid is very choppy, esp. toward the middle, and the three- and four-word onslaught gets pretty dire. Once again, I could tell before exiting the NW that things were going to be bad. It was slightly sad how easily I was able to put in the dreadful IREFUL / RELEE crossing. Puzzle's can't even sneak up on me with its blecchness any more. You can just say some of the lines straight across to get a feel for how bad the fill is. OBE EOS MCML!! POS POO RAS CEO! POO on top of "ERES TU," indeed. So, to sum up, workable concept, poorly worked, filled like a landfill.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]