Ryan's idea is simple: if you give the spectator something to hold on to as a possible anchor for how the trick was done, they will probably miss the very thing that you actually did. Throughout this book, he gives you effects and ideas that you can use to truly change how you frame your magic. Nothing is incredibly difficult to learn but you'll have a blast performing them.

My personal favorite is the opening card trick, where the spectator does literally all the work while whispering "I love you" to their card, and then you are able to find their card even after they have shuffled things around. No marked deck, no gimmicks, just pure magic as far as the spectator is concerned.

The included gimmick is really interesting as well. You may figure out what it's for when you see it, but just wait until you read what Ryan does with it and you'll love it even more!

The book itself is gorgeous. It's not very big and probably won't take you long to read through the first time, but the full color photos throughout help to really explain what each move is supposed to be. He's an excellent teacher and this book will be a great springboard for some new thinking in your routines. You'll be looking for places to put false anchors in your existing material.

For some time Ryan Schlutz has been producing a series of small booklets called "False Anchors", and this high quality hard-cover book of 130 pages is essentially a compilation of the content from the first three of these. But there is some new content as well, and the final 20 pages consists of material that appears in print for the first time. Card magic is Ryan's speciality, and this book is devoted exclusively to that.

TRICKS: There's over a dozen tricks that Ryan carefully teaches, each with ample colour photographs that illustrate the moves and steps you need to take along the way. In many cases there are extended after thoughts with alternate handlings and further ideas.

TECHNIQUES: Several parts of the book are devoted to covering techniques and principles that Ryan has come up with. There's about half a dozen different sections like this altogether, and this content includes moves, gimmicks, and principles, which are usually applied in some of the tricks that follow.

GIMMICK: You also get with the book a special metal gimmick, which has been custom manufactured to help you with one particular trick. It's good quality, and while it may have added to the cost, the trick it is used for is one of the best ones in the book, so it does add real value.

Ryan Schlutz is a creator whose work deserves to be explored and enjoyed. Ryan has set himself a very high bar in writing this book, and has spent a long time crafting and polishing the material that went into it, to ensure it would be the best that it could be, and the results speak for themselves. The production quality is amazing (hard cover, glossy pages, full page photographs), and the card magic is also very strong, while still being quite straight-forward to do. There's also plenty of variety, and many of these routines are strong enough that they could easily go straight into the act of a working professional.

The whole notion of false anchors shows that Ryan is a deep thinker who really takes the time to understand how magic should be constructed to make it as powerful as possible. This is much more than just a book of card tricks, but it contains many ideas and principles that have application to other card magic. If you are like me and enjoy really thinking about the construction of your card magic, and stretching yourself outside of the familiar, chances are that you'll really like what you find between the pages of this fine volume.

I found the book annoying.
The writing I found annoying. ie. "it's hard to describe in a book." (then don't try)
The idea of a "false anchor" is an idea that he conceived.
The graphics and pictures annoying.
The effects.... most of them, annoying.

But maybe I'm just easily annoyed.
Being an expensive book I found it to be $ for $ the worse book I've ever bought.

I gave it 4 stars b/c I find the star system of rating annoying.
I don't think a subjective opinion should be measured objectively.