A Puzzle Tough as Tentacles on Toast

Public Domain Image by Henrique Alvim Corrêa (1906). Source Wikimedia Commons.


A .pdf version of this puzzle appears on scribd.com here.
The puzzle has three parts: a clue list, a passage from a classic science fiction novel with words omitted, and a word search puzzle where all the words omitted from the passage are concealed. The object of the puzzle is to find all the concealed words in the word search puzzle and put them in the correct blanks in the passage. I designed this puzzle to have three levels of difficulty.

Clue List

Like a clue to a crossword puzzle, each word or phrase on the clue list suggests one of the words omitted from the passage. The clues are in the same order as the corresponding words omitted from the passage. For example, the fifth clue on the list corresponds to the fifth blank in the passage.

Word Search

Words concealed in the word search puzzle are written up, down, diagonally, forwards, or backwards.

The Dark Passage

The passage comes from a critical moment in a great science fiction novel, written long ago.

Levels of Difficulty

I've described the medium level of difficulty above.  For a harder puzzle, throw away the Medium Clue List.   Now try to work the puzzle.  I dare you.  For an easier puzzle, I've supplied an Easy Word List containing all the words omitted from the passage.  It's at the end of the answer section.  Tear off the Easy Word List from the answer section, turn it right side up, and use it to solve the puzzle.  Unlike the clue list, the order of the Easy Word List is scrambled.  Otherwise, the easy puzzle would hardly be a puzzle at all. 

Medium Clue List


(1) not deceased, (2) pertaining to the Roman god of war, (3) to picture in mind, (4) dreadfulness, (5) look, (6)  extraordinary, (7) yap, (8) sharp, (9) above your eye, (10) lack, (11) under, (12) ranking less high, (13) unceasing, (14) trembling, (15) Medusa or one of her sisters, (16) tempestuous, (17) weird, (18) weightiness, (19) soreness, (20) word specifying a type of attraction, (21) familiar planet, (22) fervency, (23) optics, (24) queasiness, (25) mushroom-like, (26) integument, (27) rhymes with celebration, (28) structural units of a symphonic work, (29) deep vertical holes, (30) planets 

Word Search



The Dark Passage






Answers