We’re delighted to let you all know that we now have two new puzzle reviewers. We advertised in the November newsletter and had two positive responses, from Abby Braunsdorf and Kevin McDermid. Abby and Kevin will share this year’s reviews between them. Abby kicks off with her excellent review of Komornick’s December puzzle.
Review of the December 2023 3D crossword
Clues and Grid by Komorník
Theme: The Boston Tea Party (December 16, 1773)
The winner of the December puzzle is Ray Gallantree of Chelmsford.
The first notable thing about this puzzle is the unique diagram. It’s clearly a teapot caught in the act of pouring. And the first clue uses its shape to bend an answer through the handle, around and out onto the smaller grid. As is usual for globe diagrams, there are some other long entries around the circumference.
But the tedious part of the puzzle is all the three-letter entries. There are far too many. And some of them are not very good words. Although the methods for 2 and 30 are pretty clear (and the same) AGM and SAE are not great fill.
As is common with these sorts of grids, there are many unchecked spoke letters, but there are other cells with a tremendous number of checks. The letters that make up the axis had so many I couldn’t read my notes. That should be a help for most “di” words.
There’s no trick to the clues or entry this month, so getting into this one isn’t hard. There are many clues that are anagrams or diminished anagrams (where you remove some letters and then rearrange the rest). And there are several hidden words. I usually find these the most certain types of clues to suss, so in my first pass I got a sure fill of most of the puzzle.
The vocabulary is pretty clean, though I have never in my life heard GEED used that (allegedly American) way. And I was unfamiliar with ACIS AND GALATEA, but the cluing was solid so it didn’t give me much pause.
I was unfamiliar with the song mentioned in 10 (and apparently fortunate to be so), but the clue was clear enough (and the answer would fill itself if you did all the others).
There were several clues and answers I liked. It’s a long way around the barn for the wordplay, but I like the definition of “in Madrid they use soy” for I AM. And I’m always happy when a really long answer lands, so 33’s SUPER-HEAVYWEIGHT and 35’s TWO HUNDRED AND NINETY-EIGHT gave me a smile.
The thematic nature of the diagram and surfaces of the clues were nice. And there are a decent number of thematic entries too. We already did a lot of types of tea a few months ago, but this relates more to the event itself.
The illustrated clue tells us 25 sounds like “purse pecks”, which is to the point — although here in the States it’s usually pronounced “plexiglass”.
Overall, it wasn’t a difficult puzzle, but I found all the three- and four-letter entries to be a grind. The theme was well represented by the diagram, cluing, and entries. The clue mix was maybe a little anagram heavy (but I like that).
If you're new to 3D crosswords (and even if you're not), you may appreciate a little nudge in the right direction as the deadline for each month's competition approaches. Towards the end of each month, we publish a handful or two of hints for how to solve the more difficult clues in that month's puzzle. Sign up to receive them by email, or check the website in the last week of each month.
Calendar background photographs
After providing truly superb sets of background pictures for the crosswords in our calendar for the past eight years, Graham Fox has decided to hang up his camera. As a tribute we can’t do better than our President’s words to Graham when he heard the news:
Thank you so much for your fantastic photographs which have elevated our 3D crossword calendars to works of art. Immediately appealing, they have also been part of the puzzles themselves, something for the eye to wander around during the almost impossible puzzling process of solving. A delight, that touches senses that crosswords rarely do. Truly wonderful Graham.
I first met you on Flickr looking at a beautiful picture of a steam locomotive and look what it led to!
Thank you for lending us your genius.
As for leaving ... like the Hotel California, you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave our hearts. You are in the 3D crossword memory as someone who gave something very special.
