The Blurb
Have you ever performed a gaffed book test and had someone
yell ‘DO IT WITH MY BOOK!’?
Well now you can, with Steve Valentine’s BOOKED!
On this DVD Steve shares his closely guarded secrets, honed
through thousands of real world performances. You not only
tell them the WORD they are thinking of, YOU PREDICT IT!
ANYWHERE, ANYTIME and with ANY BOOK.
As a Bonus Steve reveals his extreme variations on the
‘Pegasus Page’ plot. Including the ultimate version where a
freely chosen and SIGNED page is found RIPPED from a book
and stuck to the OUTSIDE of a window. And the best part, you
can give them the BOOK and PAGE to keep as a souvenir.
It doesn’t get any better than this. THESE ARE FORMIDABLE,
100% COMMERCIAL MIRACLES.
“I’ve been running the lectures at the Magic Castle for over
30 years. This is by far the greatest book test I’ve ever
seen, and I’ve seen them all”.
– Lee Delano, Magic Castle, Hollywood
A real ‘worker’ from someone who has obviously performed
this gem for years in his own shows. Highly, highly
recommended.”
– Chipper Lowell
“I saw this done by Steve, 15 or more years ago and I
remembered it to this day. I’m shelving my other book tests!
The wait has been long and I applaud Steve for finally
opening his vault to release this. BOOKED is a winner!”
– Joe Monti
My Comments
(revised comments 1/7/14)
This may sound somewhat sarcastic and negative, which is not
my intention at all, but my reaction to this is to simply
state that this is what happens when a clever magician wants
to do an impromptu book test. In other words, there's lots
of magician thinking here and, some effects which can be
considered magic not mentalism, but it's all brilliant and
powerful stuff.
This is indeed based on work by Al Baker and was continued
by Art Emerson (Pegasus Page) and Docc Hilford (Wizard's
Manual). Much of this material is skewed towards magicians,
but mentalists can certainly use this techniques and skew
the presentations to more mentalism ones than provided on
this DVD.
One of the highlights of this is Valentine's use of a
borrowed book to do this effect or, at least, a book that
can be handed out as a souvenir afterwards. Many variations
are discussed. Some require some prep work and some require
extra items to carry around. They are all practical
variations and you just have to choose the one that suits
you.
Of course, the consideration of Booked is that it uses a
gimmick. It's a very easy gimmick to make and it can be
customized in any language. Still, it does use a gimmick.
And, as I said, many experienced performers can do some
impromptu miracles with books that require absolutely no
gimmicks whatsoever.
Also, the gimmick as described involves playing cards, but
it's also explained that it can easily be used with business
or post cards instead. So this really isn't an issue, at
all. It's simply the use of a gimmick in the first place
which is the consideration.
I really wish that Valentine hadn't priced this so low
because this may well become a staple of magicians'
repertoires everywhere. As many know, I currently close
with a version of this (it's not the method presented here)
and it never fails to get gasps from the audience. If you
want to do a strong book effect, or if you don't have any
methods for doing an impromptu book test that you like, or
you want to check this out because it may provide you
something different, I really doubt you'll you waste your
money. The stuff in here is very strong and solid, tested,
and quite effective. Very much recommended.