Will Shortz Presents Ferocious Sudoku: 200 Hard Puzzles
Will Shortz Presents Ferocious Sudoku: 200 Hard Puzzles book cover

Will Shortz Presents Ferocious Sudoku: 200 Hard Puzzles

Paperback – Illustrated, April 1, 2008

by
Price
$10.54
Format
Paperback
Pages
320
Publisher
St. Martin's Griffin
Publication Date
ISBN-13
978-0312382766
Dimensions
5 x 0.8 x 7.1 inches
Weight
7.8 ounces

Description

“A puzzling global phenomenon” ― The Economist “The biggest craze to hit The Times since the first crossword puzzle was published in 1935.” ― The Times of London “England's most addictive newspaper puzzle.” ― New York magazine “The latest craze in games” ― BBC News “Sudoku is dangerous stuff. Forget work and family―think papers hurled across the room and industrial-sized blobs of correction fluid. I love it!” ― The Times of London “Sudokus are to the first decade of the 21st century what Rubik's Cube was to the 1970s.” ― The Daily Telegraph “Britain has a new addiction. Hunched over newspapers on crowded subway trains, sneaking secret peeks in the office, a puzzle-crazy nation is trying to slot numbers into small checkerboard grids.” ― Associated Press “Forget crosswords.” ― The Christian Science Monitor From the Inside Flap Sudoku: One of life's simple pleasuresSudoku has taken America by storm! Puzzled by the wordless crossword puzzle? Try one or two of these simple, easy-to-solve sudoku and you'll discover what millions of fans already know: There's nothing as fun as sudoku! Features: - 100 all-new simple sudoku- Edited by legendary New York Times crossword editor and America's puzzlemaster Will Shortz- Big grids with lots of space for easy solving Sudoku: One of life's simple pleasuresSudoku has taken America by storm! Puzzled by the wordless crossword puzzle? Try one or two of these simple, easy-to-solve sudoku and you'll discover what millions of fans already know: There's nothing as fun as sudoku!Features:· 100 all-new simple sudoku· Edited by legendary New York Times crossword editor and "America's puzzlemaster" Will Shortz· Big grids with lots of space for easy solving Will Shortz has been the crossword puzzle editor of The New York Times since 1993. He is also the puzzlemaster on NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday and is founder and director of the annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. He has edited countless books of crossword puzzles, Sudoku, KenKen, and all manner of brain-busters. Read more

Features & Highlights

  • The
  • New York Times
  • ’ crossword editor and NPR’s puzzlemaster invites you to try your hand and mind at solving some incredible brainteasers in
  • Will Shortz Presents Ferocious Sudoku: 200 Hard Puzzles
  • .
  • Perfectly sized for traveling with big grids for easy solving, discover if you are tough enough to take on the challenge of this collection of 200 devilishly difficult sudoku puzzles!

Customer Reviews

Rating Breakdown

★★★★★
60%
(146)
★★★★
25%
(61)
★★★
15%
(36)
★★
7%
(17)
★
-7%
(-17)

Most Helpful Reviews

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Just What I Wanted

This book gives you 100 "difficult" puzzles and 100 "very challenging" puzzles. Although there's no official grading system for Sudoku puzzles, I've done about half the puzzles in this book and I would say those descriptions are accurate. The "difficult" puzzles are hard enough to make me think but not so hard that I've had to use notations to solve them, and the "very challenging" puzzles usually require me to make notations and I've even gotten hung up on a couple of them.

The book is big enough so that the puzzles can be easily read yet small enough that it will fit in your laptop case. It's also very fairly priced for the number of puzzles you get.
65 people found this helpful
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Decent book, but not very hard in the scheme of things

This is an good book, with fairly difficult puzzles. I wouldn't say the puzzles are extremely hard. One problem I have with most Sudoku reviews is that they are not specific about what techniques are and are not required, so I always list all the ones I've found required in the book. This book does not require any advanced techniques:

* Elementary techniques (cross-hatching, single cell, single candidate)
* Locked candidate elimination
* Naked pairs, triples, and quads
* I don't believe I even found a single X-wing, although there might have been some fairly easy non-unique rectangles.

Despite this fact, it gives you a pretty good workout on the basic techniques: sometimes you really have to look for your triples and quads. If you are beyond this book, I recommend the Absolutely Nasty series: [[ASIN:1402743963 Absolutely Nasty Sudoku Level 1 (Mensa)]] is perhaps a tiny bit harder than this book, and [[ASIN:1402743971 Absolutely Nasty Sudoku Level 2 (Mensa)]] starts in with the more advanced techniques.

If, on the other hand, you have no idea what X-wings, non-unique rectangles, etc. are, but would like to, I recommend that you pick up [[ASIN:1844834050 Mastering Sudoku Week by Week: 52 Steps to Becoming a Sudoku Wizard]] immediately. You'll be talking the talk and walking the walk soon enough! The pages of the book are good sized, although they are made of newsprint, so they don't take a lot of erasing. The book's small size make it easy to carry around with you.

Overall, a decent if not super-challenging book of Sudoku that can act as a great stepping-stone on your path toward Sudoku enlightenment.
40 people found this helpful
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Maybe too tough, but then that's the point, right?

Well, I've gone through quite a few sudoku books and thought I was hot stuff. Then Ferocious Sudoku book assaulted my ego. Well, if you're looking to step up to the big leagues, this is the book; I haven't found a tougher one.
26 people found this helpful
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Hard, yes! But crummy print job.

I wasn't getting any kick from the "medium" level any more, so ordered this one. YES, they are hard! Good puzzles.

The printing, though, is rotten. It's on cheap newsprint-type paper (don't use a felt-tip pen) and with so little margin that it's really awkward trying to write on the left-hand pages. A third of the book is answers, printed just two to a page. What a waste. Who uses them anyway? For the same amount of paper, they could have printed 8 or 15 answers to a page and made more margin on the puzzle pages. But then the book wouldn't have looked so thick - a marketing fooler that fooled ME.
25 people found this helpful
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Good for the price

These puzzles aren't as hard as I had hoped, but are better than most books. Well worth it, and will pass the time as desired.
12 people found this helpful
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Great Bang for Your Buck but not for novice Sudoku solvers

I received this book for Christmas and have solved all but about 10 of the puzzles. I've been solving Sudokus for a year or so but most of the books I picked up previously had puzzles ranging from very easy to difficult rather than starting out at a harder level.

When I tried the first puzzle or two in this book, I felt utterly defeated. I had to wait until I was in quieter surroundings and after working on several puzzles, I began to fall into a rhythm - - it seems like all puzzle creators have a few of their own quirks and patterns that become somewhat intuitive to the solver after awhile.

This book is definitely not for novice Sudoku solvers but if you like a challenge, this should give you great value for your money.

(Contrary to another poster, I actually like the paper in this book -- very "erase-able" -- and I definitely make mistakes along the way so erasing is important to me! Now I just have to go back to the puzzles I've failed on to see if I can solve them with a fresh eye .)
10 people found this helpful
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So NOT disappointed!

I have not been disappointed. I expected the same great paper as the original book I had, and it is easily erasable two to three times! For me, that is very necessary, as I refuse to quit until the book is completed, no matter how many times I find that I have managed to get two fives on the same line. Will Shorts, thank you! This is how I get myself to sleep nearly every night - otherwise I would have a racing mind and get no Zs! In fact, my customers and family thank you as well. The hard is exactly that and the Very Difficult is exactly that. I have needed this type of challenge every day of my life. Definitely will keep buying your books, pal! I don't even mind buying two or three of the same copy. I'd never know if I repeated one anyway.
9 people found this helpful
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Good puzzles, no resorting to guesswork

The puzzles in this book are as advertised, challenging, but doable without resorting to guesswork. I agree with the reviewer who said that the quality of the paper leaves something to be desired, and the amount of the book taken up by the solutions is too much. However, the price is reasonable for 200 puzzles, and the book is compact enough to carry around easily.
9 people found this helpful
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Not terribly ferocious

Perfectly sized puzzles on easily-erased paper. I like Will Shortz puzzles for the most part. Notice that he does not follow the conventional rules of mirror number placement, and he gives fewer than 30 key numbers. which is also supposedly the conventional Sudoku format. For all that I have been able to solve most puzzles so far without resorting to wild things like Gordonian rectangles and Squirmbags, thank goodness. I'll buy another of Will's books in the future..
6 people found this helpful
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Very difficult

I thought I was a Sudoku master, and was not challenged at all by the Sudoku puzzles I found online and in the papers. So much so that I started doing them in pen. So this book was a real breath of fresh air. The puzzles are very, very hard, but workable. They take me anywhere from 30-45 min. each, which is perfect right before bed. There are tons of puzzles so I definitely feel like I got my money's worth. So if you're looking for a challenge, definitely start here.
6 people found this helpful

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