Diane Roseman author page
1 puzzle by Diane Roseman
with Jeff Chen comments
See the 4 answer words debuted by Diane Roseman.
| W | I | S | H | L | A | M | B | S | W | A | M | I | ||
| A | K | I | O | A | L | O | E | I | O | N | I | C | ||
| S | E | C | L | U | S | I | O | N | G | E | N | R | E | |
| P | A | K | I | S | T | A | N | Z | A | N | I | A | ||
| D | E | N | P | H | S | |||||||||
| N | I | C | A | R | A | G | U | A | T | E | M | A | L | A |
| O | K | A | Y | M | O | N | K | R | E | B | A | R | ||
| E | N | C | G | E | N | T | I | L | E | N | Y | E | ||
| L | O | T | S | A | E | I | R | E | D | E | E | N | ||
| S | W | I | T | Z | E | R | L | A | N | D | O | R | R | A |
| O | E | D | T | A | M | |||||||||
| U | N | I | T | E | D | N | A | T | I | O | N | S | ||
| T | A | K | E | N | B | E | A | N | A | N | G | E | L | |
| A | V | E | R | T | A | C | I | D | O | L | I | O | ||
| B | A | S | S | O | Y | O | L | O | S | E | N | T |
★ UNITED NATIONS used as rationale to smash two countries together. I've seen this theme type before — my wife and I even did a puzzle like this years ago, also using country pairs — but the added touches of 1.) UNITED NATIONS as a revealer and 2.) country pairs *generally* near to each other were great.
I particularly liked SWITZERLANDORRA. Not only does it roll off the tongue as a portmanteau, but the two countries are nearly adjacent (separated by France). It would have been perfect if there had been abutting countries sharing this type of letter overlap, but that would be too perfect.
If only country namers had been crossword fans …
I also liked how easy PAKISTANZANIA was to say. This one wasn't quite as good, though, since the two countries are from different continents. But I liked tying them together through the Indian Ocean.
NICARAGUATEMALA … it's great that they're so geographically close, but the portmanteau was much harder to pronounce. But it still works, especially given that [Central American bloc?] works so well.
I appreciated Zachary and Diane's efforts to work extras into the fill. I expect at least a pair of long bonus entries in a four-themer puzzle, and to get more than that is great. Love SIGN HERE and LENTANDO (I played in orchestras for 20+ years). LAST NAME is pretty good. STONERS was funny with its [High achievers?] wordplay. GAZE INTO was more neutral for me — add-a-preposition is rarely exciting — but tying it to a crystal ball was fun.
Short fill was strong, too. Some early-week solvers might have a tough time with AKIO Morita and AKIRA Kurosawa, but both are crossworthy. AKIO Morita might be more on the cusp, but thankfully all the crossings are straightforward.
The only dabs of crossword glue were the minor ENC and the less minor OLIO. Nice work, especially considering they went all the way down to 72 words, making it possible to include nice mid-length fill like DOMINOS, WOE IS ME, HOLIDAY, GENTILE.
So neat to hear about crosswords engrossing an entire family — ARE YOU LISTENING, TESS AND JAKE CHEN? I was already leaning toward giving this one the POW!, and that put it over the edge.