New York Times, Saturday, December 14, 2013

This is the second puzzle I sent to Will using the same set of quad-stacks. The first grid was rejected because Will wasn't too keen on LANE SIX and EIO (which reminds me, the first puzzle I ever sent to the NYT had EIOS (!) in the grid ... fortunately Maleska changed it to EROS).

Getting back to today's puzzle, luckily, I had a fix: VANESSA worked where LANE SIX had not. Unfortunately, two black squares had to be moved, which meant that, aside from the quad-stacks, most of the puzzle had to be reconstructed. This a good example of the "domino effect" that I think most constructors are all too familiar with!

Lastly, the lower right-hand corner was constructed with CSI fans in mind. Do you think it passes the "breakfast test"? The answer is probably "yes" if you're a coroner!

You get an extra row of solving pleasure in today's 15x16 crossword by Martin Ashwood-Smith. All four 15-letter answers in the middle of the grid are nice, and the crossings are amazingly smooth.

Another wonder from the Sorcerer of Stacks, the Genie of Grid-spanners, the MAS Maestro. What a tough workout today, and what a feat. It never ceases to amaze me, seeing all those rows without a single black square.

As Will mentioned, the crossings are pretty smooth through the quad-stack. Sure, there's a CRAT and I'm not totally sure I buy HEISTING, but NORN, SARGENT, EILEEN FORD, FILIPPO and ALI PASHA are fair Saturday material. It was fun to look up ALI PASHA and discover that his surname was Aslan, (like the lion in the Chronicles of Narnia). And it's even more impressive to see the awesome GO COMMANDO as one of the quad-stack crossers. Amazing stuff.

I like the ambition of adding two more grid-spanners into this puzzle, but neither TERRENCE MCNALLY nor SERGEANT O'ROURKE did much for me (sorry, F Troop fanatics!), especially given that there were so many other names present in the puzzle. Perhaps if one or both of those were more well known to me? Interesting that I found the roughest spots to be in the NW (D TEN / PEETE / ATRAS) and the south (ERB / RMS), both regions outside of the quad-stack. I wonder if having the two extra grid-spanners was worth it? (Or if it was even possible to complete without using the extra grid-spanners?) Tough trade-offs.

As a lover of wordplay clues, I appreciated seeing the fun clues for RIGOR MORTIS and GO COMMANDO. Amusing; it really helps to get a smile when I'm dead stuck. As I was struggling to get a toe-hold in the center, I couldn't help wishing for a wordplay type clue to help me out and divert my frustration. The tough cluing in the middle certainly made this a challenging workout, and perhaps I would have appreciated it even more if there had been a little more cheekiness in one or more of those central clues.

I would comment more on the architectural issues of the puzzle, but seeing as my attempts at quad-stacking have resulted in nuclear meltdown, I'll just sit back and admire. I appreciate the variety MAS gives us through his triple and quad-stacks, but I'm glad not every Saturday puzzle is this tough!