Random I-Tunes Song of The Moment: I'd Die For You By Bon Jovi
When it comes to e-books or books in general, reviews are a little more tricky. It's even a bit more tricky when the product was sent directly to me by the creator (rather than from a third party wholesaler). Basically, there are a few questions that need to be asked when reviewing a book. You'll find this intro and these questions at the beginning of each of the Sub Rosa reviews. Also, you'll find that both volume 1 and volume 2 contain pretty much the exact same review until the very last section, Final Thoughts. Anyway, back to the questions. They are:
- Is the book easy to read? In other words, is the layout done well.
- Are the descriptions easy to read? In other words, is it clear and easy to understand.
- Are the methods doable? (I ask this for all products that I review).
- Is the advertisement copy honest and accurate? (I also ask this for all products that I review).
- How original are the plots/methods? Are they innovative or "same old, same old"?
The questions that I don't ask for books or any product that I review are:
- Do I like the effect(s)?
- Do I like the presentation of the effect(s)?
- Do I like the creator?
Whether I like the creator, the effect or the presentation is irrelevant. Just because I don't like it doesn't mean you won't. What I care about as a reviewer is product quality and ad copy integrity. So . . . On to Volume 1.
Is The Layout Well Done?
In a word: yes. The layout of the book was fine. There were images and illustrations aplenty. The font, spacing, etc. was all nicely done. You won't be blown away by the layout or anything like that, but the book is clean and uncluttered. All too often, PDFs are just thrown together with minimal formating, and crammed-together paragraphs and pages. These books, thankfully were not like that.
Are the Descriptions Easy to Read?
In a Word: no. I'm a pretty smart well-read guy, and I struggled quite a bit to understand what I was reading. The reason it's taken me so long to review these books is because I had to essentially spend hours and hours going through each trick individually with cards in hand, and read, reread, and reread the instructions until I could make some sense out of them. There were even a couple of effects where I had decided that the instructions were actually wrong, because no matter how many times I tried to follow them, the trick would not work (they're all self-working math-based effects).
Finally after a fifth or sixth time, and discovering a sort of clue in another effect later in the book, I was able to go back to the effects that I thought didn't work and finally get them to work.
Are the Methods doable?
In a word: maybe. They're doable once you figure out what they are after struggling through the instructions. Frankly they're not that hard either. So I found it odd that the instructions were so cumbersome. However, to be fair not every single effect was hard to read through, and once I kind of got the feel for the style, it was a little easier . . . but still tough. To further complicate things, multiple shuffles/moves were employed that were never explained. It would seem that it is assumed that we the readers know what these moves are.
Unfortunately, they're not as common as the author may think. The following moves are used throughout these texts:
- Monge Shuffle
- Klondike Shuffle
- Charlier Shuffle
- Under/Down Deal
- Down/Under Deal
- Reverse Faro
All of the effects use at least one of the above moves. Most effects only use a small packet of cards, typically no more than thirteen. Of the moves listed above, I've never heard of a Monge Shuffle. I couldn't find it anywhere in my library, and it was never explained in the books, so the effects that use it . . . I have no idea if they work or not.
Regarding the next four, Klondike, Charlier, U/D and D/U, I only recently (within the last 2 or so years) have heard of these shuffles. As it turns out, they're a little more common than the Monge, so maybe I'm a bit behind the times on those. However, none of them were explained in volume 1.
The Reverse Faro was very briefly explained in volume 1. A description of a Reverse Out Faro is given. However, in volume 2, a description is also given and it's the opposite of the description given in the first volume. Further, there were cases in the instructions where they were just plain wrong. For example, in volume 1, the effect Clues I explains the position of the packet of cards after going through the routine's procedure. It says, "The lady's card A is now at position no. 9, the Q[ueen] one position deeper). However, the Queen is NOT one position deeper as the instructions say.
There are things like this throughout that make it very difficult to properly follow the instructions on something that is already, by its nature, a bit complicated to start with. Every effect with very rare exception involves tons of dealing and counting and very procedural steps to pull off the routine successfully. Some of which are long and complicated and require you to remember a whole bunch of stuff.
How original are the plots/methods?
In two words: not very. Pretty much everything is inspired by someone else's work (not necessarily a bad thing), and old mathematical principles and concepts. There's a lot of variations on the "will the cards match" concept in volume one. There were, however, a couple variations that are worthy of note. One was a fun one for kids where the kids help you find the other half of smiley face pictures that have been torn in half.
The first two effects in volume one, though not entirely innovative where pretty clever and have a lot of potential for presentational angles. It kind of went downhill from there, however. There were a few others throughout that had some presentational potential, particularly when working with couples. In those cases, the procedural nature is often justified.
Volume 1 vs. Volume 2
I have yet to read volumes 3 and 4. Also, I understand that there is a volume 5 and 6 as well - I don't own those. As you can by reading the above, it's kind of hard to separate the two volumes (even though they are 2 separate, individually sold products). Pretty much all of the "problems" are found in both books. However, there is a major difference between volume 1 and volume 2.
Volume 1 is all card tricks with either regular playing cards or blank card where you've made some drawings, or something of that nature. Volume 2, however is all ESP cards. As you may know, the ESP cards can often justify the procedural nature of these effects. However . . . and this is a big however, every single trick in the second volume is the exact same effect. I'm not exaggerating.
It's like the Mexican food of mind reading . . . what's a burrito? Meat, cheese, lettuce and tomato on a tortilla. What's a taco? Meat, cheese, lettuce and tomato on a tortilla. What's a Tostado? Meat, cheese, lettuce and tomato on a tortilla. What's Nachos? Meat, cheese, lettuce and tomato on tortilla chips. You get the idea. Sure it's sort of different, but it's the same.
These ESP effects can all, literally, be summed up with this description:
The spectator selects an ESP card. After a bunch of dealing, and procedural shuffling, and counting and dealing, the card dealt to matches the selection. Or the card matches another card in another pile. Or the mates of the cards were found.
Every trick is "dealing", "counting", "distributing", "matching." That's it. Not a single effect varies from that model, so basically in volume 2, you're spending 12 bucks for 40 variations of the exact same plot.
Final Thoughts
Of the two, volume 1 is the better, but that's not saying a whole lot. Keep in mind, that none of my review is based on the effect. It's based on the quality of the product as a whole. So that being said, it's very hard to recommend this book. First, you're really only getting one effect and a whole ton of variations. Secondly, all of the "stuff" described above regarding poorly written instructions, etc. combined with overly complicated and convoluted procedures leaves you with a less than desirable product. While it's true, you may find some minor things in here that you didn't know, and also, you may be a huge fan of procedurally complicated methods. Even if that's true, there are better products out there than this one. Sorry folks, but I just can't recommend this one.
Final Verdict:
1.5 Stars with a Stone Status of rubble