Derek J. Angell author page

My son is in the building-dinosaurs-out-of-LEGOs phase. I'm not sure whether to be awed or annoyed when he gives me that "how could you possibly not know what an Archaeopteryx is?" look.

Interesting point about the difficulty of not repeating SAURUS in themers. Considering the sheer volume of dinopedia esoterica I'm barraged with, I wouldn't have blinked twice at DIPLODOCUS ("double beam"), GALLIMIMUS ("chicken mimic"), COELOPHYSIS ("hollow form"), or IGUANODON ("iguana tooth").

Did you know that ARCHAEOPTERYX's scientific name is "daddicus dinooverloadicus"?

Solid gridwork; highly newb-friendly fill. ESTER could be tough — even this chemistry wonk tends to mistake that for the name ESTHER when filling a grid — but there's nothing else that's remotely NOT OK.

It's a shame that there are no bonus slots longer than seven letters, but filling those mid-lengthers with MR FIXIT, MADONNA, and EYEROLL helped make up for that. I'd like to see what Derek could do by removing the black square under ICILY — that'd create juicy 11-letter slots.

I'd have enjoyed working harder to uncover the theme. Taking out "dinosaur" from each of the clues might have created more of a VELOCIRAPTOR bite. Still, fun to end it with the T. REX clue — especially if you imagine a T. Rex with an Elvis pompadour or moonwalking.

There's a crossword theme in there somewhere ...

I stay away from Vowelless puzzles (VWLLSS, as they're known to fans) because I have a hard time making sense of them. I'm sure they're like crosswords — the more you do, the better you get. Still, it's hard to overcome inertia and jump in.

Thankfully, today gave me a great reason to dip my toe in the water again, CAN I BUY A VOWEL an apt revealer. Linking it to WHLFFRTN — that's WHEEL OF FORTUNE — is so much fun! I appreciated that Derek found so many iconic Wheel phrases that fit symmetrically.

Best was RSTLNE. I know those letters by heart, so not having enough room for the sextet was infuriating at first. Great a-ha, realizing that, of course, the E shouldn't be included, given the theme.

Solid fill, given the extreme constraints. Some solvers might feel like they have to slog through too much ISU, NNE, OSH, PSA, and the crosswordy SST, but consider:

• Seven themers. Even though many are on the short side, seven is always tough to work with.
• Long central revealer, intersected by two themers. Filling around crossing regions is usually difficult.
• So many consonants. A mix of vowels and consonants facilitates construction, while a big imbalance either way makes things maddeningly difficult. Zero vowels in (almost) all the themers is an extreme.

Given these issues, I'd expect about twice as much crossword glue. Fitting in a couple of ON STILTS, PET FISH, ART BOOKS = icing on the cake! Excellent work from a new constructor.

I also liked the grid art. If you squint (really hard), you can (kind of) see a wheel of black squares in the middle of the grid. Okay, maybe if you're Dali. Hey, I still enjoyed the subtle hint toward Wheel.

Entertaining debut that made me rethink my aversion to VWLLSS pzzls!