Destination Zero - John Bannon

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Destination Zero - John Bannon

Postby artychris » Jul 11th, '15, 19:25



Destination Zero Cover.png
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The Effect

Not a single effect, but a book of 25 self working card tricks, by the rather amazing John Bannon!


Cost

£35 (I got mine from International Magic)


Difficulty

1 ... maybe a 1.5!

(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)


The advertising blurb

Fasten your seatbelt.

You are travelling to a special province in the world of magic: Self-working card magic. Deceptive, automatic, and turbo-charged.

Join John Bannon on a twenty-five stop wide-ranging tour of self-working card magic. Not your typical non-sleight-of-hand tricks, Bannon has thoroughly analyzed these effects and backed up subtle principles with the careful, layered construction he is known for.

Anyone can cobble together a couple of principles and call it a "trick." Bannon looks for synergies and leverages the method as much as possible. His objective: "One plus one should equal three-or more. Otherwise, why bother?"

You get the trick and you get Bannon talking about the trick, all in his precise, but easy-to-read style. The perfect travel companion on this exciting journey.

All with regular cards, without gaffs, crimps, pencil dots, "punches," or marks. These highly-refined constructions will change the way you think about self-working card magic.

It's not just the destination, it's the journey. Enjoy the ride.

Let's roll ...



Review

A new book by Jon Bannon! How could I not be excited! And it's all self working too! Which means that, as it's by Bannon, it'll be magic of a high standard, and as it's self working, even a completely useless magician like me can use it :)

So, for your money you get a beautifully presented book of magic, clear instructions, good photography, and written in Johns chatty style that was seen in Dear Mr Fantasy. In some ways, this book could even be Dear Mr Fantasy's little brother...

There's a lot of magic in here, so I won't go trough every trick, but there are some stand outs.

4 sided Gemini: My current favourite! I am using this a lot. Very easy to do and set up, and adds to the Gemini twins - in a good way! It has so much to it, so many layers, and it's been getting great reactions too :)

AK47: The spectator thinks of a card. You put a card down. It's the one they were thinking of! OK, so it's not quite so pure as that, but it almost can be... I think this is very strong, but oddly, my audiences aren't reaction so much... Probably more an issue with my performance than the trick itself.

Origami Poker Revisited: This is a streamlined version of the origami tricks from dear Mr Fantasy. Incredibly easy to do, it's a cracker of a packet trick to keep wrapped up in your pocket! (Bannon keeps his bound in a two dollar bill. Mine lives in the folds of a beautifully printed ticket for a Bulgarian museum! What ever you wrap it in, Bannon is right, just having it there adds a layer of interest to an extremely mysterious trick!)

Tiny Contrary Killer: Every wondered what to do with those little black folding plastic card wallets? This is a great way to carry Kolossal Killer around, but without cluttering your wallet! Certainly another of the stronger tricks in here.

Ban-hilation: A self working version of Cameron Francis Annihilation Deck, that doesn't need a special deck!

Free Willy: Great prediction routine. Rubbish name! It's really simple and fun to perform, and in the right circumstance, rather baffling! (If you know the Free Will trick, then this is a version of that).

Box Of Doom! Possibly my favourite trick that I have yet to perform! It's a sort of "Trick that fooled Einstein," with cards... and a box... of Doom!

There's so much more in here... Twenty five tricks in total! All very doable and in the main, all very different! The explanations can be a little repetitive (the Rosetta shuffle and the cut deeper and cross-cut forces are used on more than one occasion and explained each time!) It's certainly a book to return to if you need a new trick quickly! (Not that I advocate performing a new trick without at least seven years of practice first!)

Naturally, with this many tricks, there's a couple that I'm not so keen on - The first two or three, to be honest! They rely on a counting shuffle thing that I'm not really very keen on.

But even the ones I don't like have things going for them. These are all polished routines. For a lot of them there's full patter provided. Each one is a complete package!

Ah! One other thing... John Bannon himself wrote something over on the green place. I hope that it's ok the copy and paste it here. It's about the content of tricks in the book...

"16 are impromptu (minimal or no set-up)
2 are somewhat impromptu
4 in which card work is impromptu, but a prop is required
1 requires an extensive stack
1 has a one-time, somewhat elaborate preparation, but fun
1 is not a card trick
"


Overall

This is mainly a book for the parlour performer. I bought it as a holiday read and it was perfect for that! Very easy to read, and nice magic that is easy to pick up and do. 4 Sided Gemini justified the price alone.

I'm hoping that the ease of the tricks, and the self working nature, won't put people off. This is an excellent book, and a great addition to my magic library!

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artychris
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Re: Destination Zero - John Bannon

Postby EndersGame » Mar 21st, '18, 14:24

Great review, and by the sounds of things this is a fantastic book.

The "Move Zero" series of four DVDs from Big Blind Media covers many of the self-working tricks in the book, taught by John Bannon himself; I have these and have been very impressed with what I've seen so far.

Am I right that the book was published before the videos, or were the videos published first?

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EndersGame
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