[.ca] Random House Crostics, Volume 8 (ISBN 0812933923)

Crostic Lovers -- check this out!:
Fun and challenging crostics. The puzzles in this book are rated as medium difficulty, with the style halfway between "middle of the road" and "contemporary" (via the "Random House PuzzleMeter"). Nice size with steel spiral spring binding. Pages are good-quality paper that accepts pencil well, yet erases easily and cleanly.

LITTLE BIT OF A LETDOWN:
Michael Ashley's previous four volumes of crostics were exceptionally good and fun to solve. Michael has given us crostics that don't rely on ridiculously esoteric clues, such as quotes from Shakespeare, unheard of islands, etc. Instead, Ashley uses contemporary clues to solve his puzzles. He also doesn't quote from stuffy writers, etc. However, in this edition, he starts to show a little bit of that "traditional" clue giving, and is not as imaginative as in his previous volumes. Still, he's head and shoulders above the rest, and I look forward to his future editions. Crostic lovers should check out Peter Scher's "Cinema Crostics" for some really fun puzzles!

Fun. Challenging. Frustrating. More!!:
These volumes are great fun. I find the ones that are modern music difficult but usually can work them out.

Fun, but not enough bang for the buck:
The clues are plenty challenging and even tricky, chosen from a wide variety of subjects and levels of expertise, but the quotes at the end are not as interesting as in other acrostics I have done. They are taken mostly from popular humor books or self-help books or celebrity bios. I would rather see meatier quotes from history and science books or essays, or actual quotes from historical figures or documents like the Declaration of Independence. Too often I find that I have the quote figured way too soon and then it is a tedious job to go back and fill in the (almost impossible) clue words I couldn't guess. It would be nice if the quotes were longer and taken from more interesting sources to make them more difficult to guess. The puzzles are still fun, but the payoff at the end (finding out the quote) is too often a letdown.

Fresh and witty quotes - good for hours of fun.:
I started "playing" with crostics in Games magazine a number of years ago and was delighted to have this puzzler recognized by Random House in volumes. Hope this Volume 3 is soon followed by another volume of fun although would also like to see a return to the original 60 games.