The Magic Show
A book is a repository of text and images, but it is also (excepting e-books) a physical object. Sometimes the physical medium of a book rivals its message in impact, as with coffee-table books, minibooks, pop-up books-and with this delightful and genuinely creative book that allows its users to put on a 12-trick magic show. Setteducati is a professional magician and renowned inventor of magic; Benkovitz is a game, magic and toy inventor. They, along with a game inventor, Ivan Moscovich, who's listed as the book's "creative advisor," appear throughout the book via appropriately gaudy, caricatured illustrations by Ellis that depict the principles moving through a magic house. The book is a marvel of design, with the tricks hinging on turnable wheels, envelopes, slots, tabs, translucent flaps and so on. Trick 1, "Astounding Spheres," for example, depends upon a sturdy, partially hidden disk embedded in the book's cover, with only the top and bottom of the disk visible, through cutaways. As the disk is turned clockwise, red spheres visible on it through the top cutaway move behind the cover proper, then reappear in the bottom cutaway as green spheres. It's a nifty trick, as are most of the others--including mind reading, escape artistry and card wizardry--some involving principles of misdirection, others depending on simple mathematical principles, but all presented with a flourish. Not every trick is a dazzle, but the book as a whole is a razzle-dazzle that adults and kids should enjoy time and again (the book includes extra pieces and reset instructions). With the holidays approaching, this could, and should, be a big seller. (Dec.)Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.