FRIDAY PUZZLE — This is a very cool, self-assured debut by a young guy with a very cool name, if you’re at all a fan of wilderness literature and thought of a mash-up of Jack London and Farley Mowat. I solved this grid and went to xwordinfo to check out Jack Mowat’s earlier constructions, since I didn’t recognize the name; finding nothing there, I went to Google to learn more about his puzzles. It turns out that this very puzzle and its constructor made the local news when it was first accepted, which is pretty neat.

Not only was this grid very smooth and professional, it was also pretty tough in some places. Because of the two crossing spans, it was easy to divide the solve into quadrants — my sticking points were all on the west side of the puzzle, mostly the SW corner. It will be interesting to see whether other solvers agree.

Tricky Clues

There were several aspects today that I found notable, including a dozen very energetic debut entries and a distinct bias against city mice (actually, this one might have been my own take). Also, there weren’t many solid planks to step onto, those entries that we rely on as sure things to at least put something down in writing when starting a weekend grid. All of mine were little nothings like MRT, IMAC and EKES.

Fortunately, some mildly risky guesses like PENT, SURF, ORTHO, and NIL panned out, but it did take a bit for me to build momentum. There were so many interesting clues and entries today, though, that this solve was completely fun and worthwhile.