New York Times, Wednesday, August 30, 2017

A big thanks to Kevin James for this one. If he hadn't come up with BLART as the last name of the mall cop in his 2009 comedy, who knows if BLUNT to SHARP is even possible. The other piece of luck is that this particular ladder isn't too long for a 15x15 and that the middle rung is BLADE. This allowed me to logically add RAZOR and KNIFE to the grid.

Word ladders have been mined for crossword themes so much, that it takes a lot for one to stand out. I like David's added layer, not just going from BLUNT to SHARP, but stopping in the middle with an appropriate BLADE. Fun to also get RAZOR and KNIFE, two objects that often need that BLUNT to SHARP change.

Sometimes I wonder if word ladders would be more fun for me in crosswords if the rungs weren't clued. The clues feel mostly superfluous anyway, as you know that you can look at the previous and next rungs to figure out that answer. The reason why I like word ladders outside of crosswords is that it's fun to see if you can figure out the entire thing, futzing around with one letter at a time.

Pretty good execution for how much constraint the word ladder forces onto the grid. Sure, the themers are all short, but when you have 11 short words that you need to fix into place, it can make for a hairy construction.

Take the middle, for example. BLARE over BLADE over SLADE is bound to cause some hair-pulling. But David uses his black squares wisely, sort of separating that area from the rest of the puzzle, helping him finesse it.

Also smart to place RAZOR and KNIFE at the perimeter of the grid, and then to NOT put any theme answers directly around them. RAZOR's proximity to SLADE and BLART did put some strain on the west section of the grid, resulting in AN ERA / IN BAD, but thankfully there wasn't much crossword glue elsewhere.

Not a surprise that the symmetrical east also showed a little strain, with RELET / EWELL / EPEES. I do think that EWELL is fair game, as "To Kill A Mockingbird" is in many English Lit curricula. And EPEES is fine by me, but it does tend to draw some eye-rolling from more experienced solvers, who see it ad infinitum.

The added touches are much appreciated, given how overused word ladders have become in crosswords. Even a few great clues, like [Book slips] innocently misdirecting toward pieces of paper instead of ERRATA, helped to keep up my interest.