Customer Reviews

Will Shortz Presents Terrifying Sudoku: The Hardest Puzzles

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I've purchased a number of Will Shortz' sudoku books over the years. I've enjoyed them all. But I've gotten fairly skilled at sudoku puzzles and now need to be challenged. This collection is truly challenging! To offer a sense of how difficult the "mind bending" category of puzzles is in this book -- in one recent puzzle, in a line where I had only one number given, I solved it only after recognizing that 5 numbers had to fall in 5 of the spaces in that line (exact positions unknown). This lead me to 3 numbers in the remaining spaces which gave me only one additional number answer in that line!!! I was still far from done with that puzzle.
Clearly, this book is not for the newspaper or magazine sudoku player. You have to be pretty good at these.
Other features I like about this book is that it's printed on good white paper that takes pen or pencil well and the puzzles are a good size (one to a page). I also like that the given numbers fill each square, making the puzzle easy to read -- although for those who like to make notes in the squares, this might be a bad feature.
I also like the compact size of these books, i.e., the ones with the cartoon images on the cover. Note: not all of Will Shortz books are in compact size.
The only minor criticism I have with this book is that in other editions of these books, Mr. Shortz included sudoku variations, such as random box sudoku and 12-digit sudoku. I enjoy the variations and would've liked to see them included.
But except for that minor personal complaint, I highly recommend this book to the skilled sudoku player!

If you're looking for very tough puzzles, this is not for you. These are no more challenging than any of the other Sudokus in the Will Shortz series. They require no advanced techniques. Taking David Bodycombe's Universal Sudoku rated from 1-6 stars as a standard, I would rate the toughest in this book as 4 stars or fewer.

I was looking forward to facing off with some real sudoku challenges. What a disappointment. I've gone through the book, zipping through one page after another, feeling as if I'm working puzzles at the "moderate" level. I don't know who edited this book, but he/she must be a real beginner. Find an alternative if you're a sudoku lover and really want to be challenged.

I have been using Sudoku for 3 years and especially in the last 2 years after by an accident not yet beeing abel to use my right arm and hand. I discovered Sudoku from my danish newspaper and after the accident startet bying books with Sudoky problems.

From Amazon I first got the Menza number 3 with Sudoku, and then number 4. And number 4 was best for me concerning beeing difficult. But when I started bying other books I only found Will Shortz books to be as good and difficult as Menzas number 4. And had bought 4 of his books when there last year came the possibility to preeoder this new book. So I preeorder the "Terrifying SUDOKU" and got it 10 days ago and have until now from start on made the 50 of them. Only when having time in the afternoon and if there then are nothing I want to see in Tv.

And I find that this book is maybee the best of the 5 books, made by Will Shortz, that I now owe. I could still use them a litle bit more difficult, and are looking foreward hoping that Will Shortz will next come with one more háving the same quality and beeing a bit more difficult.

Gert Bo Thrgersen

New classifications for Will Shortz Puzzles: Fierce and Mind-Melting. Fierce seems to be somewhere between Demanding and 'Beware-VEry Challenging'.
Difficult, but so far almost all have been doable after a bit of a struggle. Very Satisfying!