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I was in a similar place gitto. But I just had a breakthrough with the A=1 etc. element. Inevitably I realised (from the gobbledegook) that I’d gone wrong somewhere. But took a punt that my first few letters were correct... and google came up trumps. Still a way to go though.

Well think I’m there. Found the theme pretty early but has been a real struggle getting the answers in.

Feels a bit messy so not entirely sure I’m correct and have a couple of parsing queries but will look again tomorrow.

Thanks to Merenz I concentrated on the A=1 etc. and quickly got the theme. I only finished this by deducing where the creators surname had to be - and that led me to solving my final few clues. I am not too happy with the fur definition, and my character seems to meander along the correct path. Excellent clues (other than that already referred to) and construction. The preamble still confused me for a long time, but once the PDM arrives it all makes sense - especially the head or foot bit.

As with gitto, deducing where the creator’s surname went helped me to solve the final clues. The pdm on the theme also helped me to identify my missing definition and thus fix my errant source code. I like these multi-element rubrics where a pdm on one element helps you to resolve or fix another. There’s a satisfaction and reassurance about it. Thanks Gnomish for an excellent crossword - an impressive construction with challenging but accessible devises and nice clueing. I enjoyed it a lot.

I came really close to throwing in the towel on this, with all the unjumbled entries in, a few of the jumbles (unjumbled, of course, and no idea how to jumble) or the steps, and very little understanding of the preamble. One "step" suddenly resolved itself, and light dawned. Blessed Google disclosed the other steps which then fairly quickly took their places.
I found a couple of the clues - 23 and 29 - to be impenetrable until I had their scrambled letters and could work back.
I take Merenz's point about the A=1 stuff, but again that only worked with me once I knew what I was after: I think Gnomish is a bit misleading with the start.
I take mild issue with the definition for the step on the bottom row: somewhat derogatory, even if it is in Chambers.
Tough, with a dense preamble that takes a while to draw sense from. But hey, I got there!

I thought this was a fine puzzle. It seemed impossible to begin with, then enlightenment came and everything fell into place (though it was never easy). That's the point of these puzzles, isn't it?

The only slight disappointment is that the scenes don't appear in the correct order (or the one given by Wiki, anyway). Maybe that wasn't possible?

Hmm, I have just worked out the theme. I have never liked the works of this particular creator and this work in particular I dislike. Usually I enjoy being enlightened by some of the more obscure themes of the Listener, but on this occasion I may make an exception.

I can't say I was over-impressed by this, unlike most here and elsewhere who seem to singing its praises. I thought some of the clues unnecessarily verbose and inelegant, and two rows have jumbles that don't have anything to do with the theme, unless I'm missing something.

I thought the clues were pretty strong overall and enjoyed gradually unpicking the various elements. A very decent first puzzle.

On the Downside I thought the preamble was unnecessarily confusing and not sure about the construction comments given most of the grid is just a mess of random letters.

Thank you Gnomish. Finally got there. Found this quite tricky and the preamble confusing. Not familiar with the work unfortunately.