Christopher Youngs author page

It takes a lot to distinguish a nationality homophone puzzle, given the genre's long history. All the way back to CZECH for errors and travelers' CZECHS … talk about a CZECHERED PAST! Solvers might beg for mercy — using CZECH PLEAS, of course. Christopher's presentation is a nice change of pace; a much more subtle approach that didn't me want to Taiwan on.

I appreciate how thoughtful and critical Christopher is with self-examination. I bet moving NECK TIES down one row would clean things up in aisles 5-8, KOLN being a potentially tough get for newer solvers, especially ones who are young enough never to have encountered Paul ANKA.

There's so much goodness, though, that I didn't mind the slower solve. For every tougher ELEGIAC, there was an angelic ANGELOU. No BACKLASH from this satisfied solver, even if I couldn't speed through as satisfyingly fast as usual.

Hilarious clue for GEESE; the type of freshness I love in Monday cluing. It made me wonder if Reese Witherspoon played identical twins, she'd be listed twice as Roose.

I appreciate it when a Monday puzzle obscures the theme until the last moment yet still manages to be accessible to a broad range of people. I won't Dane to say that I'm looking forward to the next one, but perhaps I'll feel more refreshed by this genre around the Finn de siècle.

Christopher is being too hard on himself. It's true that an abundance of "add letters for kooky results" themes makes it difficult to pass Will Shortz's barium, ha ha, but there are a number of factors that helped me enjoy this one.

• How easy is it to discover the transformations? Using our Replacement Finder would seem to show that IUM to (blank) is easy. If you look closely at the results, though, most of them involve elements — boooring! The RAD to RADIUM transformation is hardly what I'd call rad.
• How cool are the transformations? I like that each pairing changes pronunciation. Each one shifts from a short vowel to a long one, too!
• How funny are the resulting theme phrases? Humor is so subjective, as exemplified by my near-zero acceptance rate with Will when it comes to puns. I didn't vibe with many of the results, but linking CRANIUM APPLE to William Tell was clever. And if you ask Tess and Jake, they'll tell you just how many TEDIUM TALKs I've given them.

Smooth gridwork helped the solve pass by quickly. I enjoyed some interesting fill, too, EPIDERMIS and DECOMPILE not words I cross every day.

The clue for LUCIAN did confuse me — this former wannabe Pokemon trainer would say Lucian is far from notable. But [Crime of great interest] more than made up for that. Fantastic wordplay to describe the loan-sharking crime of USURY.

If you haven't read Jasper Fforde's "The Eyre Affair," it's well worth your time. If only it had been about Brontë's descendants, it could have been "The Eyre Heir Affair"!

Entertaining homonym plays. I've played Air on the G String many times and ERRed frequently. (I'm that cellist who hides in the back of the section.) TO AIR IS HUMAN describes my three-point shot. And I enjoyed the image of lil' ol' Jane EYRE rising to the monarchy.

Following which homophone went where confused me, though. It's something that not everyone (probably no one) will care about, but I was hoping for a cycle, where the first homophone word moved to the second themer, that one's homophone word went to the third, and so on.

Just as Christopher mentioned, it is inelegant that two of the base phrases use AIR, and poor Jane EYRE didn't get one. Perhaps JANE HEIR could have worked.

Kooky puzzles are all about the kook factor, though, and these four results are all winners. Along with solid gridwork, a smattering of entertaining wordplay — I hadn't ever thought about the Three Musketeers and their lack of MUSKETRY skills — it's a great debut.