Grant Boroughs author page

Parsing long words into shorter ones for kooky results is a tough genre. There have been so many in the history of crosswords — one just a month ago — that you have to do something special to get noticed. I appreciated Grant's effort here, always separating out words that rhyme with "rise" but are spelled like "skies" — both words so appropriate when you're trying to elevate above the pack.

I admired the tightness of the theme set. What other -IES words could you play on? Although there are CRIES, FLIES, FRIES, SKIES, and SPIES, I could make only one of them work, with BEL / FRIES. And by "work," I mean "generate idiocy." [Mesopotamian god gets cooking?] supplies many cries.

CAMPINESS next to MOUSETRAP is such a vivid pairing. My son has the board game, and we look like we're in the cringe-worthy '80s commercials when we play. Are these adjacent long Downs worth the price of CMS (and SEPT / USD / AMOI in the opposite corner)? I'm on the fence, like that plastic guy waiting for the Ball of Damocles to fall and send him flipping out.

It's not an easy adjustment to clean things up, though, since the grid is already at the maximum of 78 words. Using fewer black squares in the middle of the grid would have freed up a pair to redeploy around those two big corners, but that's a huge change.

It's tough to make a tried-and-true genre noticeable, but I appreciated Grant's effort to tighten things up with an extra layer.

I nodded as I read Grant's thoughts about his puzzle. The ICS additions produced amusing results overall, but I would have loved some rationale that elevated the theme, like a related "I see" puzzle. I spent a few minutes thinking about it, coming up with ADDICTs as a phonetic hint. It's a bit off, though, and not super pleasant.

DOT COMICS was a perfect way to kick off this puzzle. If you're not familiar with Lichtenstein, he's the one who forms modern cartoon art out of dots. The word DOT doesn't change meaning, but the result so aptly describes his oeuvre.

Solid way to end, too, with POP changing meaning from pop open to pop being ignored by his kids as he tries to discuss POP TOPICS like sharing and the importance of apologizing. (NAPPED is an apt crossing word.)

Five themers can be tricky to build around, and there are signs of strain in the grid. I dislike RRNs (random Roman numerals) like MIII, since they feel like such a constructor's crutch. Peter Gordon at the Fireball isn't as opposed though, often relishing in giving crazily difficult MATH CLASSICS like [Product of LIX * XVII]. Along with AS IT in that region, I'd have tried different themer spacings, iterating until finding a better result.

Peter does hate partials, and Rich Norris at the LA Times hard caps them at two, so ALL OF + AS IT + A TEST would have resulted in a redo request.

AVI crossing AVIATOR … given that AVIATOR's etymology includes AVI, that's a no-no.

Some rough patches in this debut, but enough humor in the themers to give me some smiles. I enjoyed the AMERICAN / EUROPEAN pairing, too. Rare to see symmetrical long entries relate.