I thought I'd add my views.
The Effect
Deep Red Prediction/Think-a-Film, Homicide, The Screw-Up Factor, Take the Money and Run, Magicians' Graphology, No Way Out, Witness for the Prosecution, The Fargo Principle, The M.O.B. Billet Routine, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Charade, Mr. Saturday Night, Bonus Tips on Killer Elite, Con Air, Dead of Night, The Dead Zone, Chair Swindle, Kick in the Head, Gladiator, The Wet Headline Scenario, The Danny Rose Cigar Trick,
The Hidden, Atonement, Back to the Future, Big Reaction, The Burning, Centre Tear, The Gift, The Gourmet Coin Trick, The Greatest Showbiz Secret, The Heist, Identity, Mazel Tov Aura Test, Minted, Miracle Monte with Anthony Owen, Andy's Monte, Peeping Tom, Pop Out, The Sven Demo, Time After Time, Windows and The Stalking of Marie Ambrose: An After-Dinner Séance with Richard Wiseman.
Some of those are not tricks, but observations, mini-essays or the like. The Séance contains more than one effect. There is a host of other content too, such as reprinted interviews with Andy Nyman from the magic press.
Cost
$250 from:
http://miraclefactory.net
Sorry, but a direct link to the product doesn't seem to work.
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)
2-4
Review
This is effectively, Andy Nyman's life's work in magic. His acting career is really taking off, and I suspect that there might not be a lot more magic to come from "The Diamond" (but I hope I am wrong).
Bulletproof is a truly lovely book. It looks fabulous. The quality of both the glossy paper it is printed on and the binding is top-notch. You also get a DVD, a CD and some props that are supplied in plastic wallets stuck into the book at appropriate spots.
Adopting the title of one of Andy's effects:
The Good
A huge number of signature Nyman routines. Anyone who is a fan of Andy's work will understand what I mean by this. I can, however, easily imagine that some people will not get on with Andy's style. He tends to favour relatively simple methods. Sometimes the effect is only a 50/50 chance or a 1 in 3 shot.
Where I think Andy excels is his presentation. This too can have a downside, in that some of the tricks are so much in his style that they might not work so well for other performers. Of course you should always strive to make a routine your own, but some of this material would have Andy's fingerprints all over it no matter what you did!
If, however, you are a performer who can take a simple effect and really sell it, then the tricks here might be for you. I think that almost all of them are very good indeed, and many are excellent.
I should point out that quite a few of the tricks are far from simple to perform and/or create. Some are downright devious. Good.
The bonus material is superb. The props are lovely (but see below) and quite a surprising addition. I'd have liked more weapon cards for
Witness for the Prosecution, because they could be used for other tricks (including
The Dead Zone, I think), but that is just me. You get what you need to perform the trick and that is all I can really expect.
The essays are mercifully brief, and lacking in pretension. The reprinted magazine articles are interesting.
However, the biggest praise I feel I can give is that I loved reading this book. Andy has a great writing style, which is very accessible, amusing and clear. I found myself re-reading sections not because I wanted to refresh my memory of the method, or to pick up some nuance in the technique, but simply because I enjoyed reading them.
By the way, some of the photographs are very funny.
The Bad
A lot of the tricks have been published before, as lecture notes. These effects have been revised, and in many cases the descriptions are now accompanied by photographic illustrations. Having said that, there could have been a bit more updating done in one or two places.
Also, quite a lot of the material from the lecture notes was featured in the
Get Nyman DVD, so
Bulletproof represents the third time out for some of the content.
I don't mind. The revisions that have been made, and the photographic illustration, make this a far superior product to the lecture notes. However, if your budget is tight, and you can find copies, then the lecture notes may be a good alternative source for quite a lot of the tricks in
Bulletproof.
The Ugly.
The colour scheme for the Chair Swindle props. Ick.
Inevitably, some errors slipped in, including a photograph that accidentally bears a caption from
The Gourmet Coin Trick. Overall, though, the proof-reading of this book was excellent. It made a welcome relief from the glut of badly spelled items released to the magic fraternity.
Overall
10/10
It is not perfect, but nothing ever is.
Bulletproof is so close that I had to give it full marks.
Jheff Poncher said that
Bulletproof was the best mentalism product of 2010, and I cannot disagree. Thank you to Andy for writing it and to Todd Karr for publishing it.