Gordon Johnson author page

Gordon gives us some STAR CROSSED LOVE, using four pairs of famous actors literally crossing each other in the grid. I've highlighted them below in case you missed them.

It was great to see pairs that were easily recognizable even to this pop culture idiot. It's hard to avoid seeing stories about Angelina JOLIE and Brad PITT, and Humphrey BOGART and Lauren BACALL are uber-famous. Even Warren BEATTY and Annette BENING rung a bell. I couldn't figure out who TAYLOR was, but some research shows that of course Elizabeth TAYLOR was a gigantic star, along with Richard BURTON.

I would have loved some symmetry in the pairings. That would have been difficult though, perhaps even impossible given the constraints of crossing the two names at a common letter. Perhaps it could have been achieved by using lesser-known stars? But that would have lessened the impact for many solvers, just as my not figuring out who TAYLOR was made that pair less interesting than the others for me.

It was also a little odd to see STAR CROSSED LOVE, rather than STAR CROSSED LOVERS. Too bad that the latter is 17 letters! Even a slight expansion of a normal 15x15 grid couldn't accommodate that. I wonder if simply STAR CROSSED would have been better. It would have made the grid much more difficult to construct, forcing placement of four black squares right off the bat, but I do think STAR CROSSED is a more natural-sounding phrase.

What with all the themers Gordon had to work with, I think he did a good job with his grid. It might not seem that hard to work around those pairs, given the total flexibility to place any of the four pairs into any of the four corners, but trying to incorporate four sets of crossing answers — plus a central 15! — means you have to work around a ton of heavily-constrainted areas. A bit of A BITE and A RUN and the odd ENSOUL, but to keep it to just that made for a smooth solve.

I liked this idea, STATES OF MATTER paired with SOLID LIQUD GAS. Tough for me to not enjoy a physics / chemistry puzzle! It was also fun to use water as the example, ICE SKATING RINKS to WATER TANKS to STEAMBOATS. Although I've seen this basic concept before, it's usually been with three themers only, starting respectively with SOLID / LIQUID / GAS. So I liked all the theme material packed in today.

Elegance in puzzles delights me, and that can come in many forms. Some people prize interconnection, like how STEAMBOATS runs through SOLID LIQUID GAS. But that doesn't impress me so much, since several answers could have fit there — STEAMROLLS, STEAM POWER, STEAM ROOMS. The crossing of STATES OF MATTER / WATER TANKS does have some elegance — there's a fortuitous shared letter in the critical words, MATTER and WATER.

I would have loved some natural progression though. One could be ICE to WATER to STEAM (or reversed), perhaps all three of them listed sequentially in the across direction. Another could be STEAM higher than ICE higher than WATER, to demonstrate the relative densities of the three states. That might have been confusing to some, but it could have been a fun picture of an ice pond on a warming day. Plus, it's just a cool phenomenon that water gets less dense when it boils … AND when it freezes.

Nice to see a debut constructor pushing himself to get some bonus fill in the grid, even with five themers. I liked MACADMIA and EBULLIENT. JESTER, UTMOST, HECKLE, and RAQUEL were also appreciated.

REBOIL though … okay, it's a tough little area once you've gotten the themers and EBULLIENT fixed in place. But not only is it a pretty made-up sounding word, but it muddies the theme, making me wonder if it's somehow supposed to be related? I find a few BES, APO, DOZ kind of gluey bits more passable than one REBOIL, especially since the latter takes up a precious mid-length slot.

Overall though, a nice debut.