gareth,

I was wondering if Sudoku Extra 23 would be available soon? I'm off into hospital for a few days on Monday and would love to take my favourite distraction with me ( a great excuse for guilt free daytime puzzling!) If its not, is there a way I can print off some of the daily online puzzles to take with me (no WiFi )

many Thanks
jane

Jane, I hope you are recovering well and enjoying puzzling in the lovely sunshine now.

Gareth, I see you have been busy as ever! Any news of issue 23 tho? It has been a while now and I still prefer it to all your other publications for variety and challenge.

Sue

Hi Jane and Sue

My best wishes for your recovery too Jane - hope you found plenty to keep you occupied whilst in hospital.

I'm also looking out for issue 23 and look forward to its arrival.

In the meantime I have bought Gareth's Mammoth Book of New Sudoku from Amazon and if you haven't already got it, I would highly recommend it. It's got 495 puzzles including all the variants that we have seen in the last couple of editions of Xtra. It says on the cover over 25 different types of sudoku, but actually there are a lot more because there are several variants of the variants if you see what I mean! Towards the end there is also a selection of puzzles which combine two different variants.

Great work Gareth - not that we're greedy or never satisfied, but a second volume of that at some point (got lots still to go at in this one!) would be great.

Hi Christine

Thank you for that tip. I ordered the new book which arrived within 24 hours! I agree it is an excellent. All my favourites and plenty of new variants and combinations plu a good degree of challenge in the ones attempted thus far. What a pity it is printed on such shoddy paper tho. Horrible to write on and not easy to see pencil marks in artificial light. Pen shows through to the next page. Perhaps I am old and fussy but it spoils the pleasure of the puzzles for me. I would happily pay another pound or two for an edition on better paper. Perhaps it's just me tho.

Sue

Thanks ladies,

I'm on the mend and back at home with forced convalescence which means lots of puzzling! I also bought the book which kept me entertained for many hospital hours.. I agree about the paper.

I'm being very fussy as have lots of the 200 series AND the new book but always like the Sudoku Extra magazine - keeps me quite for ages once I get the new one

Jane

Hi Jane and Sue - glad to hear you're on the mend Jane - and that you have plenty of puzzling to help you convalesce.

I also totally agree about the paper - don't like to do puzzles in pen for obvious reasons, and you do have to press on rather hard to make the pencil marks show up.

Glad I am not the only one disliking the paper quality of the book. Have also found that if you completely mess up and want/need to start again (surely not!) and you rub too hard the grey zones almost go as well!

Plus the book will take many many months to complete doing an optimisitc average of 2/3 a day if time allows. I do wonder if the spine of the book will last that long with repeated bending.

Hey ho, grump over...... the puzzles are fantastic. Have been trying the non-Xtra ones. All excellent. Especially liked the Consec Numbers Snake although it took a while to get started.

If you are reading Gareth, thank for the book which is excellent value. If it is ever republished on whiter, smoother thicker paper I will buy another copy! Split into 2 slimmer volumes would also make it easier to handle and possibly more durable.

Sorry for the moaning but hopefully you will regard it as constructive criticism rather than whiniging! I am delighted with the puzzles and I guess you do not have too much control over the production values and costs.

Sue

Hello,

I'm new to the Forum (Hi!)

Actually, I'm kinda new to the various Sudoku variants. I'm a brand-new addict LOL. My favorites are Consecutive (along with Non-Consecutive), Arrow and Quad Clue.

Anyway, you're probably thinking this is out of place on the "Sudoku Extra 23...?" thread, but it's actually not. I just bought a subscription to Sudoku Xtra, got the pdf of issue 23, and printed several puzzles. Page 15, the page with the Futoshiki, will not print correctly. The page looks fine on my computer, but when I print it, there are these thick black lines that run across the bottom two puzzles, obsuring them (it's much worse on the bottom right puzzle than the bottom left). Does anyone else have this problem?

Anyway, back to more fun things than pdf problems LOL. I have Gareth Moore's Consecutive book (LOVE IT!!! can't wait for Volume 2), and I've ordered his Arrow books from Amazon but they haven't arrived yet. Any chance we'll see a Quad Clue book, and a full book of Non Consecutives?

I had played sudoku extra 23, I found that extra 23 is challenging as compared to others. But I don't know all the difficulties as most of the time I consider only easy levels.