talkmagic.co.uk

Fuzzy Logic by Tom Stone


Cost: $10



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)

It's almost impossible to give a rating but I think a solid 5, as you need to have your own routines and ideas before making use of the information.

What he says:100% padding, badly illustrated.

What I say: Be under no illusion, I got this as a review copy, it was free. And to be honest, too right it was free.

What you shall receive is a 12 page ebook that contains around 28 ideas, presentational and technical to different effects in magic and mentalism. Some are original, others are theoretical expansions of tried and tested routines.

First off, I shall point out that Tom's thinking is top notch. He is innovative and points out problems with such routines that are so obvious...once he's shown you.

There are too many items to review individually but there are approaches to Card To Orange, Cards to Pocket, book tests etc.
But I can't emphasize enough that they are not fully explained routines, just a few paragraphs dedicated to presentational ideas and brief technical notes.

Overal: Here is my definitive statement...
Tom, this would make an excellent freebie to give away to entice people to buying your more substantial ebooks but at almost a dollar per not particularly full page, I don't believe it is worth the money.


It is excellent thinking, but it is as it says, a mere collection of ideas.

Is this the same 'fuzzy logic' that the world knows about or is it a fancy name for the book ?

Although I've not picked up Fuzzy Logic yet, Tom's levels of thinking in his notebooks are always worth looking at. As he said when the book first came out, many people commented on the snippets that pepper his other books and this is just a collection of those.

John Carney summed it up best, I think, when he described the book as the closest you will get to sessioning with Tom (for most of us, anyway). Sessions are usually small ideas with which we run in different directions. Tom's notebook contains the ideas, and we can run with them.

If you want an idea of how Tom uses the notebooks and develops ideas you should dig out the Genii from a couple of months ago (and I can't remember the exact month - you'll have to look it up). In his column, Tom shows up a page from his notebook, and then takes us through each entry, explaining what he was thinking and where things went. It's a fascinating read.

Take care, Ian

hardik988 wrote:Is this the same 'fuzzy logic' that the world knows about or is it a fancy name for the book ?

Both!

In fuzzy logic the degree of truth of a statement is not constrained to the two crisp truth values true and false as in classic propositional logic.

That goes for the contents of my ebook as well. But mainly, it is a cool name

IanKendall wrote:you should dig out the Genii from a couple of months ago (and I can't remember the exact month - you'll have to look it up).

Thanks Ian. It was in the April 2009 issue of Genii.

There has been some additional reviews at the following places:
http://www.themagiccafe.com/forums/view ... orum=159&1
http://www.themagiccafe.com/forums/view ... orum=159&2
http://www.geniimagazine.com/forums/ubb ... ber=194004

TStone wrote:

hardik988 wrote:Is this the same 'fuzzy logic' that the world knows about or is it a fancy name for the book ?

Both!

In fuzzy logic the degree of truth of a statement is not constrained to the two crisp truth values true and false as in classic propositional logic.

That goes for the contents of my ebook as well. But mainly, it is a cool name

For those that are interested, check out Charles Ragin's Fuzzy Set
Social Science...

Total Aris