The Official Book of Hanjie [Paperback]

Timothy E. Parker (Author)

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Plume (August 9, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0452287928
• ISBN-13: 978-0452287921
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.5 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 1.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #849,044 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #26 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Science > Mathematics > Recreation & Games

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars poorly done, February 1, 2007

By 

Puzzler (Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Official Book of Hanjie (Paperback)

I agree with the other reviewers about the myriad problems with this book.

The puzzles are graded as Easy, Medium and Hard depending on the size of the grid the puzzle is printed on, with no actual evaluation of the difficulty of the puzzle itself.

The grids are 3 set sizes, and in many cases very poorly related to the size of the puzzle.

Easy puzzles are all printed on 25 x 25 grids, but the puzzle images may be much smaller (example, puzzle #7 in which the image is only 25 x 11, and would have been better printed on a 25 x 15 grid; as it is, you are left with 8 empty rows on the top and 6 on the bottom. It's just annoying.) 13 of the 36 "easy" puzzles are printed on grids at least 5 lines too large (leaving 5 or more completely empty rows or columns across the top & bottom edges together, or across the right & left sides together).

Medium puzzles are on 30 x 30 grids. Of the 26 medium puzzles, I count 12 which have 5 or more completely empty lines at the top/bottom edges or the right/left edges. All of those puzzles should have been put on smaller grids to begin with. One of the more egregious examples is puzzle #45, a very simple 30 x 15 puzzle printed on a 30 x 30 grid (thus graded as "Medium"), but with 8 empty lines across the top and 7 empty lines across the bottom.

Hard puzzles are on 35 x 35 grids. There are 38 in this category and 9 have the same problem of being printed on grids at least 5 rows/columns too large.

A major problem with this book: there are quite a few puzzles that do, in fact, require you to guess. An absolute no-no in a logic puzzle book!

More minor quibbles with the book:

lower grade paper used (thinner and grayer than in other similar books I've enjoyed)

the heavy bold grid lines (the ones used every 5 squares vertically and horizontally) don't extend into the clues section. So you have to be especially careful, for example, when working on the bottom section of a 35 x 35 puzzle that the squares you are filling in line up correctly with the line of clues at the top of the puzzle. The bold grid lines every 5 squares usually alleviate this issue, but not when the bold lines don't show in the clues at all!

the completed images themselves are, to my mind, inferior to what I've encountered in other puzzle books. Puzzles titled TV Set, Brick & Trowel, Screw Head, Paint Can, Sugar Bowl, and Skull are examples that would have benefited from more detail and/or better definition.

I don't exactly hate this book; it would be more accurate to say I really haven't enjoyed it. I give it one star because it is by far the worst book of its type that I have encountered.

Save your money, find another book or dig this one out of a super-bargain bin!

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Don't waste your money!, December 26, 2006

By 

DaveK (Oregon) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Official Book of Hanjie (Paperback)

This set of puzzles suffers from several faults... The grid squares are too large, the paper is too coarse, and even on some easy puzzles, you are forced to guess, in spite of the author's admonition that you should "never guess!" In addition, I found that some puzzles have ambiguous solutions... that is, they have more than one solution.

The author should, at a minimum, have run these puzzles through a solver application (they can be found online) to eliminate the guesswork and multiple solutions.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Illogical and Awful, March 20, 2007

By 

Sam Focker - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Official Book of Hanjie (Paperback)

I have been playing these pencil puzzles for over 15 years, and I have never seen a book with so many illogical puzzles. Nearly half of these puzzles are insolvable unless you cheat, which is incredibly frustrating. Many of the puzzles are also illogical, with the numbers on the sides not matching up to the numbers on the top. DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK! Buy "Paint-doku" instead.