Jeff Slutzky author page
1 puzzle by Jeff Slutzky
with Jeff Chen comments
See the 7 answer words debuted by Jeff Slutzky.
| V | E | S | P | A | L | E | G | S | S | P | O | T | S | ||
| A | S | K | E | W | A | V | O | N | A | R | N | I | E | ||
| N | S | Y | N | C | R | A | T | E | N | O | B | E | L | ||
| C | A | P | T | O | R | I | N | H | A | N | D | U | R | L | |
| E | Y | E | M | I | A | K | A | R | A | T | |||||
| B | E | A | T | T | H | E | R | A | P | T | O | R | |||
| R | A | T | I | O | N | W | A | R | Y | P | O | L | O | ||
| A | L | I | G | N | B | I | T | S | S | E | N | D | S | ||
| C | O | M | A | E | A | C | H | O | C | A | S | E | Y | ||
| K | E | E | P | I | T | R | E | A | L | T | O | R | |||
| B | E | N | T | O | A | T | F | G | I | G | |||||
| T | H | O | C | A | N | T | O | R | O | F | C | O | R | N | |
| O | O | M | P | H | E | A | S | Y | S | O | F | I | A | ||
| A | B | B | I | E | S | C | A | N | A | M | E | N | S | ||
| D | O | S | E | D | S | T | Y | X | T | O | R | A | H |
I read the revealing clue [Sacred text …] and filled in KORAN at first. The theme had to be KO RAN, as in "phrases with KO removed." A KO punch!
Ah, no.
TORAH?
TOR … ah!
That's a fun concept to build a puzzle around. It's no piece of cake to add three letters onto a word to form a new, valid word, so I enjoyed the CAP -> CAPTOR, RAP -> RAPTOR, REAL -> REALTOR, CAN -> CANTOR finds.
Derek and Jeff did a nice job picking out a solid set of base phrases that transformed into amusingly kooky +TOR ones. I imagined the CANTOR OF CORN starting off services with "A priest and a rabbi walk into a bar …"
Super solid gridwork, just an OSAY partial as the only crossword glue. Along with AW COME ON, TIME BOMBS, ON BUTTONS, LARYNX, etc. as bonuses, it felt meaty.
Expanding to a 16x15 can often cause trouble in gridwork, especially in the top and bottom edge of a puzzle, so kudos for the time and care they put in.
Why go to 16x15, you might ask? Since the themers are all inconvenient lengths — 13s and 12s — a 16x15 grid opens up many more possibilities in grid layout. It'd be possible to execute this theme set with a 15x15 grid, but the themers would have been crunched together in the middle of the puzzle, undoubtedly resulting in more crossword glue. I like the decision here.
I had to work hard to finish my solve, and the payoff didn't feel quite worth all that effort — it's ultimately a standard "add-letters" theme — but the execution is strong.