Review: 212 Surprising Checkmates (Wilson, Russell)

This is simply a collection of mostly composed puzzles with the theme of "mate in X". Most are suitable for beginning-intermediate players (~1000 FIDE), but I have concerns about the total value contained within the pages. I was able to get through all of it within a few days.

The book starts with an introduction using an illustrative game for why checkmate puzzles are important to learn. Then follows an explanation of the book's formatting:

The mate-in-ones are all (except one) composed positions which are amusing but unlikely to occur in real play, with pieces placed in improbable positions. The point is probably to stretch the reader's brain by forcing them to consider the geometrics of mating nets, checks, and pinned pieces. Also included are some gimmick mates, including some O-O-O# or e.p.# or worse. I'm not sure of the instructional value of each puzzle, but for non-absolute beginners they must be at least more entertaining than "Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess" bank-rank drills.

The mate-in-twos are split into 50 White Mates and 50 Black Mates. A few of the ones near the ends of each 50-puzzle set are pretty tough, but the interesting bit is that the Black mates still occur from White's point of view. This may have some value for defensive danger detection, but again this is speculative.

There are 12 mate-in-threes, which are probably the most helpful ones in the book, though they are not devilishly difficult. Most of them are still forcing lines rather than large branching permutations.

The entire book is 152 pages long and $9.95 retail, which is frankly too much for just 212 puzzles with minimal thought-process explanations and a single illustrative game. I would contrast this with Brennan's Tactics Time, which contains 1,001 puzzles in 8 fewer pages, and far fewer "gimmick" puzzles because they are all from real games. Certainly it's a quality vs. quantity comparison since the latter is more haphazardly put together, but for $16.95 the latter manages to fit 12 puzzles in a page compared to just 2 for Wilson's book.

For improving players, this volume has some instructive value but it's just not enough to justify shelling out $9.95 for it. Thankfully I mostly bought it for collection purposes, but for the average reader looking for a mix of improvement and entertainment I'd suggest they look elsewhere: C-