A new book that I played a minor role in getting published

I meet a friend of mine for lunch occasionally. He is very interested in all things math/programming and corresponds and socializes with several groups of retired/active mathematicians and professors. One time he had brought with him a manuscript that he had received from a friend of his in Colorado. It was a manuscript of a puzzle game, like a Sudoku kind of thing, but different. Since I'm a puzzle freak for those kinds of things, I was instantly curious, and asked if I could have a copy of a couple of the pages to try out the game. It only took one game, and I was hooked.

After a series of chats back and forth, I got in touch with one of the creators of the manuscript/book, and after some long discussions, they asked me to write a review for their book which was being published for the first time. How cool! This was going to be like a 'review' on the book cover, like you sometimes see other authors or publishers write to recommend books.

Anyway, after a long series of starts/stops etc., the book has finally been released for sale (I can only imagine how big of a project this must be to create and get published a book for the very first time. As thanks for offering a quote for the back page, I received copy #1 and 2 hot off the presses.

If you're interested in checking it out, here's a link to my Amazon store (sorry... shameless plug, but unfortunately unlike this very busy forum, I do rely on advertising for my own little forum) where you can check out what the book is about. I'm excited for a couple of reasons... I remember when Sudoku hit, and suddenly it was everywhere. It will be interesting to see if this game catches on like that.

After I had played all the puzzles I had received that day (the manuscript copies), I tried to do an internet search to see if there was anything like this out there and I couldn't find a thing, except a few references to the old knight game on the chess board. If it takes off with the same rage that Sudoku did, it will be cool to look back and think that I was involved with this at the very beginning!

Here's the publishers' review: