Art of Astonishment

I have to admit, that when I first received my Art of Astonishment books, I wasn't very happy with them. The wording was strange, the pictures awkward, and it was hard to follow exactly what I needed to do. I put the books down for months.

I later picked them up and found that they weren't a total waste. Not many of the tricks in there, in my opinion, are all that great. I have no idea why the price of these books is so high. Maybe I need someone to show them to me individually.

With this possibly being the case, I bought the Art of Astonishment 1 DVD. Apparently, Paul Harris was intending on doing a video for all 3 of his books, but later changed his mind. Even the tricks on the DVD aren't all that spectacular.

The tricks are really for the extreme lay person, who completely doesn't understand magic nor misrepresentation. Any spectator who has a solid head on their shoulders and is good with problem solving will be able to figure out pretty much all of the tricks. Only a few gems are contained within these books.

I would not go as far as saying that the effects are worth the cost of the book alone. Not even close. But what I will say is, that the effects ARE worth the amount of money you'll lose if you get the book, read through it, pick out the good tricks, and sell the book again on eBay.

Some of the good ones are performed by Wayne Houchin, but there are others that you'll find to be pretty nice. I've performed some of the tricks I've learned out of the book and I have not gotten caught. One of my favorites is a blackjack hand. Where you apparently give an ace to the spectator, but in the end the ace is in your hand, and they are left with a bad hand of blackjack.

There are some other nice effects, but - to anyone contemplating purchase of this series.. honestly, put that money towards something better... like David Stone's DVDs .. ANY OF THEM! For the price of all 3 Art of Astonishment books, you should be able to buy all of David Stone's DVDs. He's got some great ones.