CISRA Puzzle Competition 2007 - Solutions

This is the archive of the 2007 Puzzle Competition. Please visit the current competition site for information about the latest Puzzle Competition.

D.5 Graphic Novel

Intuitive leap: Each pair of letters indicates an edge in a graph. The vertices of the graph are labelled with the letters A-Z.

A graph can be created by drawing a line between the letters in each letter pair. For example, the first letter pair is "AC" - you just need to write an A, write a C a short distance away, and draw a line between them. Likewise for "BD". When you get to "CD", the C and the D are already drawn, so you just need to connect them with a line. As you go, you may have to reposition some letters to make sure the lines don't cross over each other.

When you're finished, you will have a set of discrete sub-graphs. For each sub-graph, the vertices are ordered alphabetically from left to right then top to bottom, when drawn correctly. The sub-graphs are also sorted left to right in alphabetical order of the vertices, to give this result:

A   B    G    K\   P\   U  W-X-Y
|   |   / \   | L  | Q  |    |
C---D  H   I  M<   R<   |    |
|   |   \ /   | N  | S  |    |
E   F    J    O/   T/   V    Z

The graph forms the name of a famous novel graphically: HOBBIT.