Anne Larsen author page

What a neat DNA pattern in the black squares! I appreciate seeing something fresh in a themeless grid.

The unusual layout is difficult to fill since the southwest and northeast corners contain pairs of long answers crossing each other. It's not as hard as when you're intersecting triple-stacks of long answers into another, but it's still no mean feat. That NE is dynamite, NOT A HOPE echoing EXTREMES, running through CHE GUEVARA and HOME PLANET. Throw in CAT CHOW, and that's a winner.

I liked the SW as well; YOU BET I CAN exhibiting that I DARE SAY daredevil attitude toward eschewing themeless layout norms. I didn't love ONE-SEATERS, though, as I'm not into racing. I bet it did a lot for NASCAR fans, though.

I enjoyed getting some echoes of Anne and Dan's previous work, some of their personal tastes shining through. HOME PLANET and the REBEL clue (about "Star Wars") were obvious enough connections to LAND SPEEDER, and NET NEUTRALITY echoed the social justice lines of YELLOW VESTS.

As I've mentioned before with Dan's puzzles, the gridwork is strong (aside from a couple of oddballs in PETARD ARTE ARGENT), but I'd like to see more time spent in the cluing arena. I didn't have as much fun solving this one as the grid quality might predict, because so much of the cluing was straightforward and even dry. Windflower = ANEMONE, Occident = WEST, Silver = ARGENT … not much life there.

A strong grid is a must to get a themeless acceptance, but it's clever stuff like "pat on the back" for BURP (as in the verb) that makes a themeless solving experience brilliant. I push co-constructors to write at least ten of these wordplay gems in any themeless puzzle, knowing that at least half won't quite make it through the editorial process, so solvers will still be treated to five.

Debut themeless from one of the young guns — and his sister! Neat to see them work together. I keep suggesting to my four-year-old that we make a crossword together, so she can smash the record. Her reading/writing vocabulary is impressive already, so if I were a betting man, I'd set the over/under at age ... 10.

Not that I'd place bets on my own daughter! I'd never wager with other fathers on how many times she'd poop in a day or if she'd get across the monkey bars on the first try, no sirree!

(At least I bet ON her, never against her. Results: four, and she didn't.)

There's a lot to love in this 72-worder. Note that I didn't say "standard 72-worder." It's unusual to keep one's corners so wide open, because it's so hard to "turn the corner." ARCADE / COUGAR / TIRADE is a beautiful result coming off that ACT OF GOD / ROID RAGE / CURE ALLS triplet.

There were a couple of toughies, EREBUS, PEALE, and LATH having the potential to throw solvers off, but other than those hiccups, I was impressed by the quality of fill. It did take me 30 frustrating minutes to finish — about 3x as long as usual for a Friday. Perhaps that tough vocab was the culprit?

Puzzles that have such wide-open corners usually can't help but use a couple of neutral entries like EXPERTLY, INTERVAL, RANDALL. Nice clues for the last two, though, INTERVAL having potential for a clever musical clue, and [Tony with an Emmy] wonderfully confusing.

Speaking of wonderfully confusing, WTF does [Hear "here!" here] mean? It took me a few readings to realize how brilliantly that hinted at ROLL CALL.

I liked the modern touch of YELLOW VESTS (the recent French protest movement) and FRAPPUCCINO to balance out more tired material like SET SHOTS and ED O'NEILL, especially when the latter is clued to "Married with Children" instead of his more recent (and better) work.

Solid overall. I'd love to see more family duos pairing up.