THE BLURB:
If you have ever wanted to perform a book test but couldn't
afford the high price tags - Romhany's book test now offers
you a three phase routine complete with the specially
designed book, at a very affordable price - you can start
performing this almost instantly as the book does the work
for you. There is nothing to memorize.
For the past twenty years Paul Romhany has been traveling
and performing his magic all over the world, and has visited
more than seventy five countries. Because of his extensive
travel, he ended up writing a book for lay people on his top
ten travel destinations. To help promote his book during his
shows, he would perform a book test. Of course, the one he
used during his show was a special book he had printed, to
look like the one he sold - but this one was gimmicked and
enabled him to perform a three phase book test routine with
it.
EFFECT:
A book of holiday destinations is handed out, and a
spectator thinks of a country, another chooses the first
word on any page while another person looks at a paragraph
and concentrates on an image. You take out three business
cards and write down a country, the thought of word and draw
the image that the spectator is thinking. There is nothing
to memorize as the book does it all for you.
You can use this book test as a stand alone routine
performing the three phase routine Paul does, or have it as
an addition book test with the other books you may perform
with already.
Comes complete with gimmick book and instructions.
MY COMMENTS:
For the price, this is one helluva deal as most similar book
tests sell for $50 and up. It incorporates three well-known
principles found in other, more expensive, book tests and
some of those book tests feature less than three different
principles. Paul Romhany even includes a very nice subtlety
that he's applied to the progressive anagram principle that
I've not seen before. It provides a lovely and effective
out for when a stated letter is wrong. Unfortunately, it's
not a principle that can be applied to any progressive
anagram.
One of the key strengths to this, or anything that I've seen
from Paul Romhany, is his routining. This is a fast,
three-phase worker that involves the revelation of a place,
word, and image. And, yes, you could apply his routine to
other book tests. You could also use this book without
using his routine or modifying it to suit your needs.
Incidentally the places involved are Alaska, Panama, Costa
Rica, Monte Carlo, Portugal, Egypt, New Zealand, Rome,
Canada, and the Amazon.
In comparison to other book tests, there are a few points to
note. First, it is not a large book. It's only 114 pages
and about 8"x5". Because this looks like a thin,
souvenir-style book for tourists (the kind I've seen in many
tourist shops) it didn't bother me that much that it didn't
look like a "real" book inside. Also, as I was flipping
through it, I did find some typos and formatting errors.
None of these should affect the performance and it's
probably just the English teacher in me. But I did notice
them and I'm just mentioning this. Also, the instructions
refer to "breakthrough" as being one of the key words. It's
actually "breathtaking," but that's an error in the
instructions and, again, will not affect the performance
unless you confuse the words (which is not difficult to
avoid when you see the product).
The package includes the book plus three 8.5" x 11" sheets
(5 pages of instructions). As travel book tests go, Larry
Becker and Lee Earle's Double Vision is still the
Rolls-Royce, but this comparatively inexpensive product is a
very good gimmicked book test for the price it's offered at.
