Random I-Tunes Song of The Moment: You Are My Everything By Courtney Stone (Yep . . . My Daughter)

After reading the first several pages of this book, I decided that I was probably not going to be happy with it. Of course, however, duty requires that I finish the book and form an opinion when I'm done. Let's get all the easy stuff out of the way first; then I'll delve into some of the details.

Production Quality: Excellent. It's a beautiful hard bound 150 page 5 x 8 (ish) book with excellent quality paper, clever art work and well organized chapters. Other than a few minor issues with the translation leading to a few typos and minor grammar issues, this was a darn near flawless production.

So the real question is the content. That's where I got turned off . . . at first. The book starts with actual mathematical formulas (literally) to describe a cards across routine. It was painful to read and took several attempts for me to begin to grasp what he was saying. It could be that I'm just slow (very likely) or that he was waaaaay over thinking the plot . . . I'm open for it to be either of the two or even a combonation of both.

However, I pushed through. I'm very glad I did. The basic structure of the book is to discuss a theory (in sometimes excrutiatingly painful detail). Then to show how that theory applies to a particular plot. Then finally to show how that theory was (or could be) put into practice to create an effect.

Oftentimes people ask creative people questions like "How do you create ideas?" or "What's the creative process like?" and a whole slew of similar questions. This book is a very, very good answer to many of those questions. You get to see inside the mind of a genuinely gifted magician. You take a ride with him to places where sometimes the journey is better than the destination and other times, vice versa.

There were cases where I loved the end result and the process, or only one or the other, but in the end, I came away with several things.

• Some clever techniques that I can use to fine tune my own presentations
• Some new ways at looking at my actions, words and methods
• A splitting headache
• . . . and A new found respect for Helder Guimaraes

$40 is pretty competitive in the magic book market these days. So I think the pricing is in line. There are several excellent effects and even more excellent "creation" sections. If you're looking to drastically improve the way you look at and think about magic, this definitely fits the bill.

Final Verdict:
4 stars with a Stone Status of Gem