Description: Aaron Fisher's book contains some of the most hard hitting visual magic you'll come across. This book is not for the beginner but it will give you some great information and new sleights. Perhaps the most renowned part of this book is the first chapter in which Aaron covers his handling of the Half-Pass, this move is totally deceptive to anyone, even those in the know. Without further ado let's take a look at the book and it's contents in detail.
What You Get: The Paper Engine is a hardback bound, 126 page book filled with new sleights and Aarons take on classic sleight of hand. At the end of the book, 12 full tricks are offered to the reader; I'll go into these in full a bit later.
Contents: At the start of the book there are 18, that's right, 18! 'techniques' for you to add to your repetoire and make use of them! 12 Tricks are then given which utilise the sleights taught.
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The Gravity Half-Pass: Aaron Fisher's take on the classic sleight the half-pass is an absolute gem in magic; ask any professional and I'm almost positive they'll tell you that The Gravity Half-Pass is their half-pass of choice. Aaron's almost invisible half-pass is covered in the simple action of raising the deck from mechanics grip to the fingertips. Aaron takes you through the steps to perform this sleight and breaks it down immensely so that you can do it too!
A Half-Pass Variation: This is a variation of the half-pass in which it is covered whilst raising the deck for you to spread through and view the faces of the cards. I love this, and the 'quick-trick' Aaron gives you to utilise this in is a brilliant effect that has two outstanding outcomes no matter what!
The One-Handed Popover: This is Aaron Fisher's One-Friggin'-Handed method for performing J.K. Hartman's Pop-Out Move, for those of you familiar with it, imagine performing the move one-handed. For those of you unfamiliar, the pop-out move allows one card to appear to just pop-out face up in the middle of the packet and outjogged. It's quite startling to see, but it is by no means an easy task to do one-handed! I'll be practising this one for sure, it's a really awesome move.
The Nowhere Pass: The Nowhere Pass is an excellent take on the classic sleight 'The Bluff Pass'. With Aaron's handling of this pass, it really is quite deceptive, but for me, I find it awkward to perform, as is mentioned in the book coincidentally; as with all sleights, Aaron gives you the history behind how he came up with his handling and often funny stories of him showing it to his acquaintances.
The Illusion Control: This is a control which allows the magician to control the selected card to "virtually any position in the top half of the deck.". For those of you interested it was inspired by Chris Kenner's sleight 'Shifty'; I have never seen this sleight, but knowing CK it was probably awesome. This control is difficult to get smooth looking but it is truly deceptive and one I'll definitely be adding to my arsenal once I've practised it a lot.
The Outjog Hermann Pass: Wow, what a sleight, I love this. This sleight will allow you to outjog a selected card, push it in fairly and immediately have the card on top. I believe this was one of the things filmed with Aaron for the 1-on-1 Section of the site. The move is absolutely fantastic, I've often fooled myself performing it, when you do the move and actually think about what you've done it's STILL impressive.
The Undercover Switch: This sleight will allow you to have four selected cards, openly and fairly selected I might add, shown as the four aces; with a switch, naturally. But the switch is so smooth and flowing, even the knowledgable will be hard pressed to spot the switch, all the cover is perfectly co-ordinated to make for a beautiful switch.
A Useful Switch: This is a method for switching in a number of cards for a number of cards under cover of squaring the cards away from the deck and turning them face down again. Personally I prefer other methods for switching in/out cards mainly CK's 4for4 switch. Sorry Aaron! Nothing personal
Decking the Top: Again, something I have other preferences for, but that's not to say this isn't a great idea. Often when you replace a palmed card there is an unnatural beat where your hand completely covers the deck to square the cards, you know what I mean. Aarons method eradicates the unnatural moment and instead makes it flow like a trickling stream...awh. (For those of you interested in my preference, it's a method devised by Earnest Earick in 'By Forces Unseen' another book which I'll be reviewing soon. So look out for that)
A Diminishing Lift: This is the Fisher method for a diminishing lift sequence, you'll be familiar with diminishing lift sequences from the trick Jumping Gemini amongst others (JG was just the one I remember most). I prefer Aaron's method over the one I know as I find this one to flow more for me personally. For those of you unfamiliar with the sequence, it allows you to show four cards as duplicates when in fact you may have none.
The All Together Now Shift: This shift will allow you to place four cards into the deck, fan the deck to show their different locations, close the fan, push the cards in and have them controlled to the top. This shift is very smooth and fair looking but involves quite a lot of work in my personal opinion. It's a great shift for controlling multiple cards though and one I'll definitely be looking at in the future.
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That's it for the 'Technique' section of the book and all in all takes up 77 pages! Bare in mind that not only are the sleights taught in great depth but in a few of them, 'quick tricks' are offered for you to practice your sleight-of-hand and although quick ones they may be, I find them to still be quite powerful, do NOT underestimate the quickies. Furthermore, Aaron gives you thoughts and comments after each technique, whether that be tips and angle control or history and reference, these thoughts and comments are a great addition to an already great section of the book!
In the next post we'll be taking a look at the actual tricks/routines Aaron has on offer. This includes his powerful 'Revolution No. 9' which if I'm not mistaken Aaron has closed his personal act with a number of times. Never heard of it? Then read on!!
- Sean
What You Get: The Paper Engine is a hardback bound, 126 page book filled with new sleights and Aarons take on classic sleight of hand. At the end of the book, 12 full tricks are offered to the reader; I'll go into these in full a bit later.
Contents: At the start of the book there are 18, that's right, 18! 'techniques' for you to add to your repetoire and make use of them! 12 Tricks are then given which utilise the sleights taught.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Gravity Half-Pass: Aaron Fisher's take on the classic sleight the half-pass is an absolute gem in magic; ask any professional and I'm almost positive they'll tell you that The Gravity Half-Pass is their half-pass of choice. Aaron's almost invisible half-pass is covered in the simple action of raising the deck from mechanics grip to the fingertips. Aaron takes you through the steps to perform this sleight and breaks it down immensely so that you can do it too!
A Half-Pass Variation: This is a variation of the half-pass in which it is covered whilst raising the deck for you to spread through and view the faces of the cards. I love this, and the 'quick-trick' Aaron gives you to utilise this in is a brilliant effect that has two outstanding outcomes no matter what!
The One-Handed Popover: This is Aaron Fisher's One-Friggin'-Handed method for performing J.K. Hartman's Pop-Out Move, for those of you familiar with it, imagine performing the move one-handed. For those of you unfamiliar, the pop-out move allows one card to appear to just pop-out face up in the middle of the packet and outjogged. It's quite startling to see, but it is by no means an easy task to do one-handed! I'll be practising this one for sure, it's a really awesome move.
The Nowhere Pass: The Nowhere Pass is an excellent take on the classic sleight 'The Bluff Pass'. With Aaron's handling of this pass, it really is quite deceptive, but for me, I find it awkward to perform, as is mentioned in the book coincidentally; as with all sleights, Aaron gives you the history behind how he came up with his handling and often funny stories of him showing it to his acquaintances.
The Illusion Control: This is a control which allows the magician to control the selected card to "virtually any position in the top half of the deck.". For those of you interested it was inspired by Chris Kenner's sleight 'Shifty'; I have never seen this sleight, but knowing CK it was probably awesome. This control is difficult to get smooth looking but it is truly deceptive and one I'll definitely be adding to my arsenal once I've practised it a lot.
The Outjog Hermann Pass: Wow, what a sleight, I love this. This sleight will allow you to outjog a selected card, push it in fairly and immediately have the card on top. I believe this was one of the things filmed with Aaron for the 1-on-1 Section of the site. The move is absolutely fantastic, I've often fooled myself performing it, when you do the move and actually think about what you've done it's STILL impressive.
The Undercover Switch: This sleight will allow you to have four selected cards, openly and fairly selected I might add, shown as the four aces; with a switch, naturally
. But the switch is so smooth and flowing, even the knowledgable will be hard pressed to spot the switch, all the cover is perfectly co-ordinated to make for a beautiful switch.A Useful Switch: This is a method for switching in a number of cards for a number of cards under cover of squaring the cards away from the deck and turning them face down again. Personally I prefer other methods for switching in/out cards mainly CK's 4for4 switch. Sorry Aaron! Nothing personal
Decking the Top: Again, something I have other preferences for, but that's not to say this isn't a great idea. Often when you replace a palmed card there is an unnatural beat where your hand completely covers the deck to square the cards, you know what I mean. Aarons method eradicates the unnatural moment and instead makes it flow like a trickling stream...awh. (For those of you interested in my preference, it's a method devised by Earnest Earick in 'By Forces Unseen' another book which I'll be reviewing soon. So look out for that)
A Diminishing Lift: This is the Fisher method for a diminishing lift sequence, you'll be familiar with diminishing lift sequences from the trick Jumping Gemini amongst others (JG was just the one I remember most). I prefer Aaron's method over the one I know as I find this one to flow more for me personally. For those of you unfamiliar with the sequence, it allows you to show four cards as duplicates when in fact you may have none.
The All Together Now Shift: This shift will allow you to place four cards into the deck, fan the deck to show their different locations, close the fan, push the cards in and have them controlled to the top. This shift is very smooth and fair looking but involves quite a lot of work in my personal opinion. It's a great shift for controlling multiple cards though and one I'll definitely be looking at in the future.
-------------------------------------------
That's it for the 'Technique' section of the book and all in all takes up 77 pages! Bare in mind that not only are the sleights taught in great depth but in a few of them, 'quick tricks' are offered for you to practice your sleight-of-hand and although quick ones they may be, I find them to still be quite powerful, do NOT underestimate the quickies. Furthermore, Aaron gives you thoughts and comments after each technique, whether that be tips and angle control or history and reference, these thoughts and comments are a great addition to an already great section of the book!
In the next post we'll be taking a look at the actual tricks/routines Aaron has on offer. This includes his powerful 'Revolution No. 9' which if I'm not mistaken Aaron has closed his personal act with a number of times. Never heard of it? Then read on!!
- Sean
