Rating: Summary: Good, but not killer puzzles Review: According to my performance in solving these puzzles, the answer to the question in the title is "pretty close." I was able to get many of them after only a few seconds, although admittedly some did stump me. The collection of 150 puzzles are original to the author, but the forms of most are in accordance with many time-honored formulas. Finding the next number in a sequence, starting with a word and changing a single letter at a time to transform it into another word are well-known methods of creating puzzles. Other classic problems are those involving letters placed in an unusual form in order to suggest a longer message and drawing the minimal number of lines so that all dots in a figure are on a line. The book is split into two sections, warm-ups and killers, with the latter advertised as being the hardest imaginable. That goal is not achieved. Granted, the killer puzzles are harder, but quite frankly some of them are almost obvious. For example, the message in
DAY DAY DAY DAY DAY CAST CAST CAST CAST
is not difficult to see. Another example is to find the general formula for the terms of the infinite sequence
3, 11, 19, 27, 35, 43, 51, 59, 67, . . .
Certainly not what I would envision as being examples of killer puzzles. No problem requires more than basic algebra and some require knowledge of different bases of enumeration. For some, simply thinking about them will do the trick. While I did enjoy reading and working through the puzzles, the level of difficulty appeared to me to be overstated. That is why I gave it four stars rather than five.
Rating: Summary: A Great Mind Challenge Review: I like to regularly challenge my thinking and my mind. "Are You as Smart as You Think You Are?" certainly provided that challenge. The puzzles really made me think and I kept coming back to many of them several times, before checking the answer key. Mr. Stickles provides hours of brain stretching entertainment. Keep it up. I'll look forward to your next book.
Rating: Summary: Fantastic book Review: I like to think I am fairly intelligent, and Mr. Stickels book really made me feel inadequate. I love a challenge and this book is the ultimate. This book should be read by anyone who thinks they are the stuff. I have never seen anything like it. Blows MENSA away. Way to go Terry, and keep up the good work.
Rating: Summary: Fantastic book Review: I like to think I am fairly intelligent, and Mr. Stickels book really made me feel inadequate. I love a challenge and this book is the ultimate. This book should be read by anyone who thinks they are the stuff. I have never seen anything like it. Blows MENSA away. Way to go Terry, and keep up the good work.
Rating: Summary: Not as original as I'd expected Review: I must admit I expected something special from a couple of rave reviews that I read, but this is really just a compilation of number reasoning tests with some general knowledge and some Dingbats thrown in. The new Martin Gardner? Definitely not, based on this collection, at least. A collection of 150 original puzzles? Depends what you mean by 'original'. I recognised several, for style if not for precise content, and would challenge some of the puzzle answers too. Average, hence 3 stars.
Rating: Summary: Superb! Review: I'm the author of "Thinkertoys" and "Cracking Creativity" and, generally read as many books as I can that relate to thinking. Terry Stickels, in my opinion, is America's Puzzle Master and has produced another great collection of original puzzles. Over the years, I've become a great fan of Terry and the way he makes me think. This book is superb. If you like puzzles, do yourself a favor and buy this book. It's a hoot!
Rating: Summary: Superb! Review: I'm the author of "Thinkertoys" and "Cracking Creativity" and, generally read as many books as I can that relate to thinking. Terry Stickels, in my opinion, is America's Puzzle Master and has produced another great collection of original puzzles. Over the years, I've become a great fan of Terry and the way he makes me think. This book is superb. If you like puzzles, do yourself a favor and buy this book. It's a hoot!
Rating: Summary: THE BEST OF THE BEST Review: I've been collecting puzzle books for a long time and I've never come across a more original, challenging and fun book yet. There is a little something for eveyone in this wonderful collection. There are also some of the toughest puzzles ever created. Mr. Stickels continues to delight his fans, from his nationally syndicated FRAMEGAMES column in USA WEEKEND, to these first class puzzle books to his excellent day to day calendar . . . he's America's best. I think some of the other reviewers missed the point of what Mr. Stickels writes: straight ahead thinking puzzles with little or no text. That's his style and always has been. One of the reasons I enjoy his challengers so much is he doesn't try to get cute.
Rating: Summary: A good book, even if a simple collection Review: It is surely an enjoyable book, but I do not feel to agree the originality of all the proposed puzzles, as the editorial review states. To be true, many of mathematical games left me the sound of a deja-vu item, perhaps something reminding me of Sam Loyd's old games. On the other side, I have been surprised by the thinkerobics, that represented also a very good opportunity to train in English language, as I am a foreign reader. But the lack of an underlying structure, and the complete absence of a narrative schema, makes it a mere book of puzzles. I like puzzles, so I like the book, but I am not enthusiastic of it.
Rating: Summary: Terry Stickles busting out with puzzles i love it Review: Its nice book to give to anyone because it's very Recreational some it's tuff you'll have a hard time solving 25% of it you'll get the answer in a second and most of the answers take time.You can go online search for Math and Logics puzzle put the reason why i got this book because i didn't see any puzzles online like the ones on the cover of the book and when i got the book most of the puzzle were original while some were updated to make them hard so pretty much everything in this book is orignal One More Thing This Books For Every One no matter if you 10 or 100
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