Each of these mock book covers is based on the cover art from an actual Star Wars book. They are presented in alphabetical order by original book title, as found on Amazon.com.
Each mock book cover also includes the name of Will Shortz, as Photoshopped from the cover of an actual Will Shortz book. The bad news is that, according to Amazon, there are nearly one thousand different Will Shortz titles from the last fifteen years. But there is also good news:
- Will Shortz's name appears in only ten styles here. Each is taken from a book published in a different year: One from each year between 2006 and 2015. (The flavortext tries to encourage you to confine your search to the last decade.)
- Will's name is always written at an angle, or along a non-flat baseline. This is also true on the covers of the original books. In fact, while the names have been expanded, or shrunk, or color-shifted during the Photoshopping process, their shape and orientation is exactly the same on the mock Star Wars books as it was on the original Will Shortz books.
Here's a table of all the books:
For each mock book, we find the Will Shortz book whose typography matches the "Will Shortz" on its cover. We take the publication year of the Will Shortz book, and use its last two digits to index into the correct title of the original Star Wars book (not counting punctuation). Sorting the results by the original dates of publication of the original Star Wars books yields the answer, RANDOLPH CALDECOTT.