Today we are delighted to announce not just a new book, but a whole new series. Specially designed for the most ardent and experienced puzzler, the Felix Linklater Presents collection is launching with four volumes of very difficult puzzles.
Lucy Baker, our website editor, caught up with Felix himself to get all the juicy details on this brand-new series.
Lucy: Felix, hi! Perhaps you could start by introducing yourself?
Felix: Hello! Sure. I’m Felix Linklater, and I’m the senior logician and puzzle editor here at Puzzle Genius. I’m essentially in charge of selecting the puzzles that make it into all of our books.
Lucy: So it’s fair to say you know your way around a logic puzzle?
Felix: Logic puzzles are literally my life. When I’m not working hard on a set of puzzles for a new book, I’m usually found solving them.
Lucy: That’s why you get called logic-meister in chief around the office.
Felix: I take that as a compliment.
Lucy: Rightly so! We’re all puzzle lovers here. So tell me, what was the inspiration behind the new series, Felix Linklater Presents?
Felix: Since our inception, Sudoku has been one of our most popular puzzles. Not just the regular game, but the variations too. Particularly Killer Sudoku. We’ve always strived to cater to a wide audience, publishing editions covering levels from beginner to advanced. But we wanted to create a new series of books that was aimed squarely at the advanced puzzle solver — the sort of person who skips ahead to the most difficult puzzles in a book. People like us, in other words.
Lucy: So you wanted to make something like our Pocket Sudoku Extreme series?
Felix: Yes, exactly. That’s a great series and I’m very proud of it. But we wanted to go beyond the pocket format. That’s why this new series was born. We’ve put hard and very hard puzzles into a medium-format edition and imbued it with everything that makes Puzzle Genius books so beloved. These volumes are around six by nine inches, or around 15 by 23 centimetres. It’s a size that’s much easier to carry around than our Jumbo editions, but it still gives us the space to publish the bigger variants like 16x16 Sudoku.
Lucy: And Samurai Sudoku, which is one of my favourites. What else is different about these books?
Felix: Firstly, and most importantly, the puzzles are hard. We’ve labelled them as one and two stars, but it’s important to know that even the one star level is at the top end of anything we’ve published before. These are definitely not beginner grids. For the Samurai Sudoku and 16x16 Sudoku books we’ve put a single grid on each page. We all know how important it is to leave room to note down candidates and exclusions.
Lucy: Yes, we always say that writing in the grid should never be part of the challenge. If you want to get into precision pencil work, get a colouring book.
Felix: Right. Our job is to present the best possible puzzle in the best possible way, and everything we do is geared around that. Then we add some bonus puzzles, because who doesn’t like an extra challenge? It’s a great way to discover new variations that you perhaps haven’t tried before. And of course we include solutions for every puzzle in the back of the book.
Lucy: Again, of a decent size. Nobody wants to have to go find a magnifying glass to check their answers. What books is the series launching with?
Felix: We’ve launched with four volumes: Very Hard Sudoku, Very Hard Killer Sudoku, Very Hard Samurai Sudoku, and Very Hard 16x16 Sudoku.
Lucy: Do you have a favourite?
Felix: That’s like asking me to pick a favourite child. I might have one, but I’d never admit it! Seriously though, we’ve put an enormous amount of work into these books, selecting excellent puzzles and presenting them in the best way — exactly as we do for every puzzle book we publish.
Lucy: Well the books look amazing, and I’m not just saying that because I work here! I’ve already sneaked a couple home and have been working my way through them. They’re not for the faint-hearted!
Felix: Thank you. I really hope people get as much enjoyment from these new puzzles as we have.
All four volumes of the Felix Linklater Presents series are available now, from Amazon: