The Effect
Win free drinks, impress the girl, and become the center of the party using over 80 tricks from the award-winning series Scam School!
Scam School Book 1's media-rich format allows you to learn tricks with unprecedented depth, supported by hundreds of photos, over 40 videos, and 70+ audio commentaries... Scam School Book 1 is the most advanced magic instruction book created to date.
Named a "Top Video Podcast" of 2008 and 2009 by iTunes, Scam School covers everything from street crime, cons, and hustles to bar scams, mind-reading, and magic tricks. This book is a collection of the very best tricks, hand-picked from over 200 episodes of the show.
Imagine the eye-popping surprise on your friend's face when you summon smoke from nowhere... Or the shock on the girl's face when you READ HER MIND! Imagine knowing that in any bar, in any situation, you can be entertaining enough to spend the whole night drinking for free.
...And best of all, Scam School Book 1 goes WITH you to the bar! Keep a copy on your smartphone, and you'll be able to review your tricks just seconds before performing them on your friends.
Cost
Currently £4.11 from Amazon but also available from iTunes and probably anywhere else where you can download ebooks from.
Difficulty
(1=easy to do, 2=No sleights, but not so easy, 3=Some sleights used,
4=Advanced sleights used, 5=Suitable for experienced magicians only)
a mixture ranging from 1-3. Nothing is massively complicated as all the 'scams' are supposed to be able to be learnt in about 5 minutes ignoring practice time for the more complicated ones.
Review
Brian's been performing magic all around the US for about ten years now not to mention having been on Jay Leno and various other tv shows (watch his demo reel here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmoMiY0zAXA&feature=youtube_gdata_player so he's probably not a stranger to members of this forum and he's also gained some notoriety for his Scam School series of video podcasts where each week he teaches a new trick or technique for getting free drinks out of your friends. This ebook, fresh out today, collects a whole bunch of those tricks together in one handy volume and then gives you a whole load more.
To put it simply, everyone producing ebooks from now on have to seriously raise their game following the publication of Brian's book as he's really using the format to it's best advantage and I guarantee normal magic books are going to look rubbish in comparison to it with it's integrated videos and audio commentaries. You don't just get full colour photos illustrating each effect, you get videos showing how they're done and recordings of Brian going into more detail about it, explaining why he's decided to include it and extra little titbits. There are also links to the original episodes and to other websites which give extra info and he even rates each tricks difficulty and impressiveness factor whilst also suggesting whether to use it as an opener, middle trick (tweener) or finisher to aid you in creating your own set which finishes with free drinks for you! It even formatted for your smartphone of choice so you can take it with you to the bar, picnic or social event so you can double check what your supposed to be doing before you launch in to your presentation!
I wouldn't say that any of the tricks are massively original however they are all stunners and he covers such a wide range of styles (card tricks, mind reading, bar bets and more) that I think everybody would be able find at least half a dozen bits that they'd be happy to have an experiment with and use to annoy their friends with and with a little bit of personalisation even working pros will find things to slot into their setlists.
Overall
I've noticed a few spelling mistakes so I'm almost inclined to knock a point off but seeing as Brian has produced a fantastic selection of effects and then packaged them in, lets face it, a game changing format- he really only deserves 10 out of 10.
Mr Brushwood, I salute you.
