Welcome back. I'm here again with my latest review. This one is special. I was connected to a guy named Oliver Meech. Oliver is a VERY talented performer. He sent me a copy of his book and after reading the first few effects in it, I KNEW this was going to be a a great read. And I was correct! The advertisement reads as the audience sees it. There are absolutely NO pipe-dreams in this book. Everything CAN and WILL be performed at one time or another.
So what exactly is "The Plot Thickens"? It is a colaboration of extremely creative ideas from Oliver Meech. There certainly is nothing "new" in here, just ideas basically. Thickened plots. What I mean by that is, Oliver has taken a wide variety of plots from classic texts in magic, and revamped them to work for YOU in today's world. The tricks are all the same, but in each one there is something new, whether that be a simpler method, to a more visual effect. For example, do you remember that old bird cage trick? The one where you had a bird on one side of a paddle and a cage on the other and when you spin it around fast, it looked as if the bird was in the cage? Well in here, this is done with a fish and a fishbowl. Do you know The Quarter Through Soda can? That is mixed in with the paper balls over the head! Read ahead to find out more! ____________________________________________
QUALITY: 3/5 : I'll ya. I had higher expectations for the quality of this book. It was published and printed by Lulu.com and normally their products have very fine quality, but this was just disappointing. The spine of the book seemed like it was a little bit frayed, and through opening and closing the book, the spine was getting wrinkled sort of, and that has never happened to me before (except for Jerry Mentzer's book, but that was just poor choice of paper). Also, the color tone of the book (purple or blue?), shows smudges and it looks terrible. When I first got this and started reading through it, I noticed that it was covered in finger prints and it looks bad. One final note, the printing of the book. The plot might be a little TOO thick. The word "thickens" on the front cover if the book was printed off center so it rides right off the cover of the book and the letters "T" and "S" are only half exposed. I guess I can't blame Oliver since he has no control over the printing, just letting you know. In each effect, there are photographs. These are VERY good quality! Although black and white, Oliver did the un-thinkable, and filmed in a simple setting. There were no elaborate posters or cages in the background. Just a table and Oliver. They wern't even fuzzy or hard to understand, like some books I have read. The only problem is that all of the pictures are reversed because Oliver is a left handed magician, so they were flipped to be righty compatable, which doesn't work out too well for another lefty, like myself.
LAYOUT: 5/5 : The layout, in my opinion, was genious. Everything was very modern and east to comprehend. There were introductions, forewards, brief information about the effects in the book, and then the chapters. At the beginning of each chapter, there is a little "optical illusion", of a sort (which was annoying in the beginning but kind of grows on you), and then the tricks. He gives an introduction to each effect (similar to those of Coinsomnia [see review]) and also a simple effect "description" (which wasn't really described but of course these effects arn't too difficult to figure out what is supposed to happen). Then after each effect, Oliver gives credits and additional advice, plus a large blank space which can be used for notes. ___________________________________________
I made the mistake in one of my previous reviews, to review EVERYTHING. That review took almost 3 weeks. I won't be doing that here. I'm sorry, but there are 22 creations in this book, plus varriants, so doing so would be completely undesirable. So I have chosen to review each of my favorite effects from this book, not from a personal view, but from an objective point of view so YOU, the reader, gets to know exactly what is good about each effect.
STUFF WITH CARDS: 4/5 : This might be the only time you hear me rave about cards. I typically only perform a few card tricks, but enough about me. In this chapter, the effects are visual (or CAN be visual) and are all practical for the real world. One of the better effects here is the Invisible Man, which can be performed on stage or close-up without worry. But there are other ones that are visual stunners, such as Cardboard Birthday Cake, where a signed playing card with a birthday cake and a candle is shaken and the candle either visually extinguishes, or invisibly, depending on your style. Then the psychological killers, being Not Seeing The Wood For The Trees, an effect where a grid of cards is layed out, and failing to find the selected card, the remaining cards reveal a selected card.
INVISIBLE MAN: 5/5 : Is my absolute favorite effects from here. This is one of those effects that Gary Norsigian talks about on his DVD set, Tricks That Will Get You Paid (see review), where you can take it from close up, and with little change, make it play for a grand audience or 400. What happens is an audience member is braught up and selects a card, and two stickers are used to make the assistant believe he is invisible and annother assistant can see through the person and read the card against his chest. The method is one that has been around for a long time, yet widely over-looked until jsut recently, yet even THEN it was a little over looked! After reading this one, it will be ver clear how powerfull it could be. The best part is, the playing card doesn't even need to be read. If you did this on a large stage with just normal playing cards, sure the card can't be read by the people in the back, if the front row audience can see it and can REACT to it, then people will understand that the assistant has seen through the other assistant's body and read the card. Even just the invisible assistant needs to react for everybody else to know that the card that was revealed is the one he held. And for the record, the assistant you choose to be turned "invisible", might not be too good if it is a woman.
NOT SEEING THE WOOD FOR THE TREES: 4/5 : This is one of the other psycholigical killers presented in this book. What is awesome about it is, it takes a classic plot that isn't really performed anymore, and made it MUCH better. That is the old dealing down cards trick. The kind of trick that makes people go, "yea, I know this one, uncle Roofus did it for me". But he DIDN'T. Sure cards are delt down after one is chosen, but after eliminating a few to get to the chosen card, the audience notices that the remaining cards form the shape of their card, AND in the same color! The bad part about this one is that dealing down cards can be a hassle for you. If you work in a restaurant where the table top might be a little small, the cards might not fit and you will have to move to another effect. Also, if you do outdoor walkaround engagements, the wind will blow your cards away and then you are left revealing the sdfsdf of sdfsdf. But this one is certainly GREAT for parties when you are put on the spot.