Tag Archives: Pop culture

PuzzleNation Book Review: The Puzzle Lady vs. the Sudoku Lady

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Welcome to the third installment of PuzzleNation Book Reviews!

All of the books discussed and/or reviewed in PNBR articles are either directly or indirectly related to the world of puzzling, and hopefully you’ll find something to tickle your literary fancy in this entry or the entries to come.

Let’s get started!

Our book review post this time around features Parnell Hall’s novel The Puzzle Lady vs. the Sudoku Lady.

Cora Felton is known far and wide as the Puzzle Lady, powerhouse puzzlemaker and occasional crimesolver, but her reign may be over. Minami, the Sudoku Lady, has come from Japan to challenge Cora for pride, PR, and puzzle-bragging rights. But when dead bodies start turning up and Minami is fingered as the culprit, it’s up to Cora to clear the competition’s good name.

Now, before I get into the review, it’s confession time. This is the second time around for me with this book. I read it a few years ago, and didn’t particularly enjoy it. But I was also sick as a dog at the time, so I wanted to be sure that my general foul mood at the time didn’t impair my ability to appreciate what I was reading at the time.

Turns out my illness had nothing to do with it.

The Puzzle Lady vs. the Sudoku Lady is part of Parnell Hall’s Puzzle Lady Mystery series — which he’s been publishing at the rate of a book a year since 2000 — and I sincerely hope it’s not indicative of the rest of the series. The reader plows through a needlessly convoluted story, confronted by a population of unpleasant characters and a protagonist who is unlikable in the extreme. She’s more grating than curmudgeonly.

Now, to be fair, that’s not to say that bright spots in the novel don’t exist. Hall has a natural adeptness with wordplay and his nigh-Vaudevillian exchanges of dialogue are engaging. Sadly, however, both are severely undermined by the unsympathetic cast of characters.

The sudoku and crossword puzzles included within are both an interesting gimmick and a pleasant treat; my own penchant for puzzling would not be ignored, and I solved each puzzle as it appeared. Unfortunately, those were calm spots in an otherwise stormy narrative.

I must conclude that The Puzzle Lady vs. the Sudoku Lady is at best an uneven reading experience. (Though I might try another Puzzle Lady Mystery someday, for curiosity’s sake.)

Well, I hope you enjoyed the latest installment of PuzzleNation Book Reviews, and I look forward to more book discussions in the future. In the meantime, keep calm, puzzle on, and I’ll catch you later.

Octopuzzling!

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Fellow puzzlers, I must apologize. Over the last few months, I’ve attempted to cover as wide a swathe of the puzzling community as possible in my blog posts, but I failed.

Make no mistake, I’ve done a pretty decent job of it, exploring everything from puzzle tattoos and Halloween costumes to brainteasers both new and old, from puzzle references in movies and TV to writing clues and book reviews.

But I’ve managed to neglect an entire sector of the puzzle-loving community: non-human puzzlers.

Oh yes, I’ve been unintentionally speciesist, and that stops today. Let’s take a look at Earth’s other great puzzle-solving creature: the octopus.

Think I’m kidding? Hardly.

Scientists have repeatedly found that octopuses can solve mazes, remember solutions, and apply past experience to new puzzles. They are infinitely curious and adaptable puzzle solvers in their own right.

In fact, some researchers have taken to offering what are known as “prey puzzles” to octopuses in captivity in order to study how they learn, as well as their dexterity, both mental and physical.

From locked boxes to screw-top jars and bottles, prey puzzles have all been solved with relative ease by octopuses. (In fact, Lucy the Puzzle-Solving Octopus — which should really be a children’s book or a kids’ TV series — has been the subject of several articles.)

True, they’re not exactly solving Rubik’s Cubes or decoding cryptograms, but they do impressive mechanical puzzle-solving for a species lacking thumbs, don’t you think?

So, it is with deep regret that I apologize to the octopus community for ignoring your puzzle-solving skills for so long. It shan’t happen again, I assure you.

And now, as a final act of contrition, I give you the following video, featuring a poorly-filmed octopus solving a fairly simple prey puzzle in under two minutes. Enjoy!

PuzzleNation Book Review: The Puzzling World of Winston Breen

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Welcome to the second installment of PuzzleNation Book Reviews!

All of the books discussed and/or reviewed in PNBR articles are either directly or indirectly related to the world of puzzling, and hopefully you’ll find something to tickle your literary fancy in this entry or the entries to come.

Let’s get started!

Our book review post this time around features Eric Berlin’s novel The Puzzling World of Winston Breen.

That name might look familiar. Yes, Eric and I are both contributors to the PuzzleNation blog. You may think that biases my review in some way, but I assure you it doesn’t. Yes, we both work on the same blog, but Eric stole my lunch money once, and I think that evens things out nicely. Remember: coworker + stolen lunch money = objectivity.

Anyway.

Young Winston Breen is a puzzling fiend, and most everyone in his town knows his penchant for puzzles is unmatched. So when the box he buys his little sister for her birthday turns out to have a secret compartment with a puzzle inside, everyone assumes Winston is behind it. But he’s not, and worse yet, he can’t solve the puzzle at all.

Winston and his chums start investigating where the puzzle came from, but after a curious encounter with the town librarian and crossing paths with a few shady characters, he soon discovers his puzzle is part of a much larger mystery: an actual treasure hunt. Can Winston, his pals, and these strange treasure hunters unravel a 25-year-old puzzle? More importantly, who can Winston trust?

I’ve seen this book described elsewhere as The Da Vinci Code for younger readers, but honestly, I enjoyed this book a lot more than Dan Brown’s efforts. The Puzzling World of Winston Breen is not only a fun read and chock full of all sorts of puzzles — some central to the mystery, others as stand-alone little challenges — but it’s a delightful romp of a story.

The voices of the younger characters all ring true, avoiding the common YA pitfall of having preternaturally sharp protagonists and supporting characters. Winston is often flummoxed by the challenges and obstacles he encounters, but he never gives up, always looking for another solution or pathway to solving whatever problem he faces.

But I also appreciate the lingering sense of menace to the book’s central mystery. You never lose that feeling that there’s some potential danger involved. With break-ins, vague threats, and shady characters with their own agenda, that shadowy feeling doesn’t overwhelm the more carefree puzzle-solving fun of the book, but it does add some stakes to the treasure hunt itself, which I quite enjoyed.

A quick and immensely charming read — the first in a series — The Puzzling World of Winston Breen is perfect for younger readers and puzzlers alike. (Check out the website by clicking here!)

Well, I hope you enjoyed the latest installment of PuzzleNation Book Reviews, and I look forward to more book discussions in the future. In the meantime, keep calm, puzzle on, and I’ll catch you later.

A twoderful holiday five you and yours!

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A holiday hello to my fellow puzzlefiends and solvers!

In the giving spirit of Christmas, I wanted to leave a small token of wordplay wonder for you. As such, I’m happy to present one of my all-time favorite comedy routines, a Victor Borge classic called “Inflationary Language.” It’s a little word puzzle in and of itself, and I think you’ll quite enjoy.

PuzzleNation Book Review: Ready Player One

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Welcome to the first installment of PuzzleNation Book Reviews!

All of the books discussed and/or reviewed in PNBR (PBR?) articles are either directly or indirectly related to the world of puzzling, and hopefully you’ll find something to tickle your literary fancy in this entry or the entries to come.

Let’s get started!

Our inaugural book review blog post features Ernest Cline’s novel Ready Player One.

Set in a world not too far in the future, Ready Player One introduces the OASIS, the next generation of videogaming and virtual interactivity. The OASIS allows you to go to school, escape from reality, and go on gaming quests, all from the comfort of home. The impoverished and generally frustrated Wade is just one of the OASIS’s many users, but his lack of funds keeps him from indulging in many of the more lavish adventures and activities available to others in the OASIS.

But things change when James Halliday, the co-creator of the OASIS, dies, leaving a challenge in his will for his fans and followers: find three keys hidden within the OASIS. Whomever finds these Easter Eggs will be granted total control of Halliday’s fortune AND company.

Wade and many of his fellow gamers know that finding the three keys might be the only way to avert a corporate attempt to monetize and economically subjugate the OASIS. Can Wade or one of his fellow gamers find the keys and save the OASIS?

Ready Player One is an outstanding debut novel, capturing the excitement and spirit of both RPGs and videogames, as well as the curious nature of Internet-bred friendships, all wrapped up in a terrifically fun adventure tale.

Both utopian and dystopian in spirit, Ready Player One is confident enough to invest time in the backstory of both Halliday and the world at large, giving the reader plenty of time to acclimate and become invested in Wade’s quest. I was quickly hooked by the intriguing world-building both inside and outside the OASIS.

But amidst the videogame trappings and ’80s pop culture references — cleverly employed as an obsession of the players, allowing them to feel vintage, rather than dated — there is an undeniable puzzly spirit at the heart of the novel: solving riddles.

Halliday leaves a riddle as the clue to unravel in order to locate the first key. Riddles continue to pop up, daring both the characters and the readers to find the solution. (Not only that, but the book itself offered a challenge for sharp-eyed readers, and one skilled puzzler won a DeLorean after solving the embedded puzzle.)

With plenty to keep puzzle fans, gamers, and pop culture aficionados engaged, Ready Player One is a terrific read. One of my favorites from the past year.

Well, I hope you enjoyed the first installment of PuzzleNation Book Reviews, and I look forward to more book discussions in the future. In the meantime, keep calm, puzzle on, and I’ll catch you later.

Puzzle Tech Support, how may I help you?

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All of the best operatives have tech support. Bond has Moneypenny and Q. Batman has Oracle. Punisher has Microchip.

My older sister has me, your friendly neighborhood puzzlin’ fool.

Allow me to explain.

For a few years now, my older sister has competed in various rounds of the Great Urban Race, a city-centric version of The Amazing Race that combines trivia, puzzle-solving, and physical challenges. And an outrageous amount of running around.

(I understand there is a similar event in Canada known as the City Chase. And, of course, there’s the supremely puzzle-focused BAPHL, which Eric covered earlier this year.)

Since it’s damn near impossible to do research on the run, competitors are allowed to have someone as remote tech support to do the electronic legwork while the team is on the move. As a puzzle fiend and a world-class Googler, I was her first and only choice.

So last weekend, for the third time, I found myself hunkered down in front of my laptop with several Google windows prepped, waiting for text messages or emails to roll in.

The first time, she was in Philadelphia.

Where is the only digital printing studio in Philly with IRIS 3047 printer? Where is the Class of ’49 Bridge? What is the river that the St. James Brewery in Dublin is situated on?

And then the kicker. Where is this statue?

I hit Google Image Search immediately, but the dimensions on the picture simply didn’t match up with anything I could find in the Philadelphia area.

Which meant either the photo was compressed or otherwise distorted, or it was taken from a weird angle.

So I went with that, looking for any gargoyles with potential, or at least a similar shape. That’s when I stumbled upon an image from Philadelphia’s Eastern State Penitentiary.

They have two gargoyles that are put up on the main gateway in early September, since they do a special Halloween tour every year. They’d gone up on the ninth.

It turns out the picture was of the second gargoyle — the first, with an outstretched claw, was the one that kept turning up on Google Image Search — as shot from below.

Crafty, crafty.

The second GUR was New York City.

Find a certain restaurant. (No sweat.) Track down the business or organization behind a certain slogan. (Took a lot longer, because she gave me the wrong slogan.) Track down a business on a given street. (Nailed it quickly.) Find a theater under former names. (Again, no sweat.) Locate the largest rare goods shop. (Got it.) Unscramble a phrase to find a business’s name. (Anagrammed it in my head.)

But again, an image-search question was the most time-consuming. I had a cellphone-quality picture of a photocopy of a picture of a cigar store Indian statue, and I had to find the exact statue in Manhattan AND its location.

THAT was tedious. But I was eventually successful in tracking him down.

This time around, she was in Las Vegas (which I believe she and her partner qualified for after performing well in the New York City round).

There weren’t any tough Image Searches this time around — or if there were, she didn’t need my assistance with it — but my trivia and puzzle skills did come in handy again.

In one instance, a phone number was translated into another language, and I had to identify and decode the number. (It was Tagalog.)

My anagramming skills again came into play, but this time in a list of comic book titles and characters that had been scrambled. I was stumped by the last one, GECRSOSN MPRIRE, for a while, because while CONGRESS PRIMER immediately jumped to mind, that was total nonsense to me as a comic book fan. Googling that phrase did me no good, either.

It was a while before I started playing around with GECRSOSN again and remembered a defunct comic brand, CROSSGEN. CrossGen Primer. I excitedly texted her back with that.

The first puzzle she sent me, though, was easily the most puzzly of their challenges.

In this zero-ten numbered puzzle, complete this chain:
8 5 4 _ _ 7 _ 10 3 2 0

Did you get it? I’m sure you have by now. From there, it was a quick Google search for the address of a certain wedding chapel where their next challenge awaited them.

I’m sure she’ll participate again at some point, and when she does, I will be there, puzzle skills at the ready.

But in the meantime, let’s all keep calm, puzzle on, and I’ll catch you next time.