Heptagon

THE BLURB:
Heptagon, a comic devoted to mentalism over the telephone,
doesnt suffer from your usual transparent mathematical or
psychological methodology.

Artist Jesse Rubenfeld's art is beautiful, the page layout
is stellar, and overall the product productions are top
notch.

Here's a sneak peek at the 7+ effects inside:

Imagine being able to perform strong, commercial mentalism
remotely over the telephone without having to resort to
contrived mathematical feeling procedures, or having to rely
on traditional psychological forcing techniques. These
routines are just as impressive over the phone as they are
in person.

Dead Phone - Divine and predict the location of three
weapons hidden in three different pockets of your subject.

Drinks on Me - A 100% Safe Acid Roulette Game.

The Call - Successfully call the winner of three rounds of
RPS & know the exact objects thrown in the last play.

Memory Prison - Memorize the subject's deck of cards in 30
seconds then teach the subject to memorize a deck of cards
in under one minute all over the phone.

Coin Claw - Feel exactly what the subject feels and identify
which of four coins is being held at seemingly any given
time.

Coin Cast - Perform a which hand is the coin in effect and
also be able to call if the coin is heads or tails up in the
subjects hand. Yes, even over the phone!

Lie Detector - The performer is able to correctly spot when
the subject is lying or telling the truth without fail.

Remote Composition - A different presentation of the
previous routine with a psychic theme rather than a
psychological. This works well as a fail-safe for Joshua
Quinn's Duplicity.

Subliminal Persuasion Kicker - Have the subject write down
an open prediction about a physical set of actions he or she
will do only to have him or her cause it to come true
moments later without being aware of it.

Tracing Dick - A drawing duplication for the phone

MY COMMENTS:
Within the past few months of writing, several books have
been released dealing with long distance effects. Among
them are Jack Kent Tillar's SEXTET and Juan Tamariz' VERBAL
MAGIC. This one, though, is my favorite collection of such
routines. That's because Jack's book features clever codes
and needs assistants and Juan's book skews more towards
cards and magic. This book does not require assistants and
is squarely in the mentalism category. I'm having a lot of
fun with the material in this book.

In fact, I told Patrick that the very first routine in the
book, "The Call," got me thinking and so excited that it
took me awhile to keep going and finish reading the rest.
I'll go on record by saying that "The Call" is my favorite.
It's simply playing the children's game of Rock, Paper,
Scissors over the phone and predicting the outcome.
However, the participant gets to assume the role of both
players and the mentalist predicts how the round is played
out.

Another strong entry is "Tracing Dick," which is a clever
drawing duplication over the phone. "Coin Claw" involves
coins (or other objects) and uses a principle that is
carried over into the next effect, "Remote Composition,"
which perhaps is even stronger, because it deals with
images. "Drinks on Me" is a Bank Night type effect with
drinks.

This is the second book in a series that Patrick is creating
that involves discussing material in comic book form. His
first, Triangle, had three strong effects, but they weren't
quite as accessible to most performers for various reasons.
This material, by the nature of what it is, requires no
sleights and little, if no, memorization. The comic book
pages are used to illustrate the presentation. I'll let you
decide whether or not you like that format, but I find it
refreshing and original, despite being somewhat unrealistic.

Anyhow, this is a work that is, for me, a no-brainer in
recommending. If you're looking for good material to do
over the phone or radio, then you really ought to check this
out.