Magic Tricks

I got this book and I must say : all the effects are truly baffling (at least to a so-called lay audience!)

I can totally see myself perform several tricks from this book. My favorite one is "ECYT", the very first trick. It is a brilliant way to end a show.

Even if some pieces require an advance set-up or some "special" cards (double backers, double facers, blank cards), and cannot therefore be performed right on the spot, they are well built and always focus on fooling your audience. There is something to learn from almost every trick in this book, even from the ones with special cards. I am pretty sure I will never perform "Touchdown Prophecy" the exact way it is described in the book; but reading it is in no way a waste of time. To quote Michael Close in his foreword : "I like the way Sylvain Juzan thinks" I know understand better why.

And the Bernard Bilis move is so devious and not too hard to master. Playing with it for a while will make you understand there are so many possibilities.

So, as an overall impression, I would say there is some solid and strong card magic here.
Just be aware that :
_ it only deals with cards. Okay, the title suggested it anyway !
_ there are precisely 13 effects and 2 moves.
_ some effects need preparation, so you might have to think ahead on how to incorporate them into your act : deck switch? opening effect? pretending you "forgot" a card in the case? etc. One effect for instance (TNT) requires the deck to be split in reds and blacks; so my first question was "how am I going to arrive at this situation in the course of a previous effect, so I can carry on with TNT?" A bit of thinking won't hurt, and is actually fun to do. Similarly "Color Correction" is both fun and powerful; it is well-worth carrying an extra double-backer and secretly adding it to the deck in between two tricks.