Well, my first publication project is finally ready for release. I am pleased to announce, at last, that my first book of any kind is now available at lulu.com. This is not a work of fiction, but a work of madness called Sudoku Most Foul. It contains 150 puzzles of increasing difficulty from actually hard to incredibly brutal.
The book is aimed at hardcore sudoku solvers, people who like a good challenge and are unable to find such a challenge in mainstream books. It's also for people who have something to prove, to find out whether they're really experts or not. Almost a third of the book requires trial and error (not guessing, mind you) to solve, and even the easiest puzzles in the collection require techniques like the uniqueness tests and X-wings. This is not your kid sister's sudoku!
There. Now I can say I got a book published before I hit 30. Less than 5 days to go.
ID:22659
 Nov 13 2006, 8:32 pm (Edited on Feb 23 2007, 10:39 am)
|
|
|
Nov 13 2006, 9:13 pm
|
|
Silent Sage
 |
you liar. lee gaiteri wrote this, not lummox jr
|
Well I guess we've finally found out your real name, Lummox. =)
Eek. Sudoku! *runs* | |
I might buy that for a friend for christmas, he's been looking for a hardcore Sudoku challenge...
| |
Congradulations! So I'm assuming you have a technique to measure the difficulty of a puzzle? Or have you actually completed each of the puzzles yourself?
It's been a couple years since I've heard your name. I started trying to find it again a couple months ago. (Can't remember why.) I couldn't remember if Lee was your first or last name. | |
He's written Sudoku generators and solvers before, so I imagine they're all/mostly computer-generated.
| |
I knew Lummox JRs name. It's the same as mine. "Lee" =P
And I didn't know you were a scorpio. Name, Starsign, Love to Program, anything else you have in common with me? -- Forgot to mention, I love to write fiction stories. But I never write anything novel size or anything to be released. | |
Very impressive accomplishment, Lummox.
| |
Nice Lummy!
| |
I just sent my cousin a link. I caught her filling out someone else's book during a family party last year.
| |
Well done my friend!
I have been dabbling with sudoku but haven't even really gotten good enough to finish moderately medium difficulty puzzles. Will this be in bookstores or just online? I would love to go into my Coles Bookstore and, while buying the book, say "Yeah I know this dude." Again, congrats :) To many more in the future. | |
I don't know how to understand how to play Sudoku myself.
| |
I did a couple of them once. Didn't really see the point, to be honest; I would have had much more fun writing a program to do it for me. =)
| |
Nifty! I hope it brings you wealth and notoriety!
I have not yet tried Sudoku because it might turn out that I can know the solution to a puzzle just by looking at it, and then I would be an idiot savant and people would point and laugh at me. | |
sudoku is my favorite type of puzzle(and the only one i like :p)!
| |
Congratulations on getting it published.
Although, whats with this trial and error thing? The whole point of sudoku is using logic to solve puzzles, you should never have to use trial and error while solving a sudoku puzzle! | |
To answer some of the questions:
This will be available only online, through lulu.com. They take Paypal, so ordering is easy. I don't have an objective measure of difficulty for the puzzles, since such a measure is notoriously hard to discover. However, I rated them by general difficulty class of the techniques involved and how often they were used in each class. To be sure I wasn't grossly overrating the puzzles, I let the generator mutate them a few times and re-solve to see if it could find a shorter path to solution. Trial and error isn't the same as guessing, so it is a legal sudkou technique. T&E requires making either a trial placement or elimination, then following through the logic to see if you can prove it must be true or if it must be false. The distinction is subtle but important. And yes, I like to write fiction too. I'm working on a book of short stories (nine so far) that I'll also be publishing on Lulu. Most of them are sci-fi, though I have a Roguelike fantasy novella (Below) at the end. I'm waiting for feedback on some of them to see if they're ready or if they need additional work, plus I'm hoping to sneak in a tenth story. | |
Nice work Lummox. You get a kiss!
*mwah* | |
Publishing a book: +++
It being a *Sudoku* book: - ;-) Hopefully it will make you a zillion yen. | |
Sudoku owns. And good job on getting it published. :D
| |