Two sudoku champions have conspired to create the most amazing-looking, captivating sudoku variations the world has ever seen! Each puzzle is a work of art, with unique rules and eye-popping graphics, all inspired by—but going far beyond—traditional sudoku.
This is the pinnacle of sudoku-meets-art that every fan will be clamoring for!
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Thomas Snyder has won the U.S. Puzzle Championship as well as the U.S. and World Sudoku Championships. As a puzzle constructor, he specialises in hand-crafting very artistic puzzles, particularly sudoku. He also created: BATTLESHIP[trademark] Sudoku 9781402749384 Wei-Hwa Huang is a four-time World Puzzle Champion and the 2008 U.S. Sudoku Champion. He has competed at the World Puzzle Championships more than any other person in the universe. When he's not working on puzzles, he play tests and develops board games. Together they also authored: Mutant Sudoku 9781402765025
Thomas Snyder, aka Dr. Sudoku, is a three-time World Sudoku Champion and six-time US Puzzle Champion. Thomas specializes in hand-crafting artistic, themed logic puzzles, particularly sudoku and variations. He is the founder of Grandmaster Puzzles and is the co-author, with Mike Selinker, of the PuzzleCraft series of columns in GAMES magazine. Away from puzzles, Thomas is a scientist developing new medical diagnostics for organ transplant management.
Perhaps the easiest way to let a potential buyer know what this book is all about is to quote the blurb from the dust flap:
"Two Sudoku champions have conspired to bring you the most exotic-looking and captivating variations the world has ever seen. These puzzles are masterpieces both in skillful construction and in the stunning forms and patterns the grids take."
It's been my almost universal experience that the folks that writing marketing materials for book jackets are, to say the least, prone to hyperbole. But, in this case, I have to agree wholeheartedly with the advertisement. It's difficult to convey the artistry and diabolical imagination that must have been behind the creation of this spectacular array of Sudoku variations. Even the most jaded and skilled Sudoku solvers will have to stop and think as they are forced to re-jig even the most basic beginning steps to solving each puzzle.
And (be still my beating heart!) each variation is repeated at most once or twice. There is absolutely no chance in this book to sit back, get mellow and think that you've got it all figured out before the creators move you on to an even bigger, better, more eye-popping challenge.
I can but cross my fingers and hope that Huang and Snyder will choose to create more of these masterpieces for another volume.
This book contains weird sudokus. Period. But in a good way...
Firstly, it stands out from the other 99% of typical computer-generated dull sudoku books. Secondly, I value presentation and the artistical element in puzzles as much as the logic of the solve. Sudoku masterpieces is presented elegantly and the puzzles inside contains some of the most creative sudokus you will ever see. Kudos to the two sudoku champions who lived up to their standards.
What lost the 5th star for me was that some sudokus felt like 'work' rather than puzzles. I still recommened this book to puzzle lovers, maybe too straining for newbies but do give it a try. I forward the recommendation to other books by Snydey and Huang - their ability to construct puzzles is magnificent.
I got this book for my hubby, and he's been happily working on it every night for eight months (since Christmas). Every puzzle has a different shape with grids overlapping and shifting and requiring different spacial considerations. I don't know what I'll do when he finishes it; last year it was Boggle Sudoku, another great one, but this was the last one on the shelves that offered anything but the basic 9x9 square over and over.
