Tommy Wonder was an incredible performer, well-known for his smooth sleight-of-hand, masterful misdirection, and devious devices. And now, a modern master of magical creativity shares his favorite Tommy Wonder creations with you as Dan Harlan presents "The Best of the Books of Wonder."
Over the course of 10 lessons, Harlan brings The Books of Wonder to life with full performances and expert instructions. He personally selected routines, tricks, and props from The Books of Wonder which appeal to magicians of all skill levels and audiences of all ages. And in addition to his top-quality instruction, Harlan has added his personal touches and updates to this unique, impressive, and memorable magic. Plus, he's created brand-new, bonus artwork so you can easily make the props in your own home.
Whether you perform occasionally for friends or in your own professional show, you want your magic to be the best it can be... and this is it. Each lesson features phenomenal, reputation-making magic you’ll enjoy learning and performing.
Just take a look at the wonderful magic you’ll learn:
1. Here and Not
You’ll learn a stunning, multi-phase routine in this lesson filled with so many transformations it’s hard to believe that all you’ll need is one extra card. First, you find three Queens instead of the selected card. Realizing your mistake, the Queens all transform one-at-a-time into the selected card! Then, when the fourth Queen shows up, it’s changed into the selection as well… but, wait, that’s not all… the whole deck also transforms into the selected card! It’s an incredibly well-constructed sequence that gets gasps of disbelief! Suddenly, all the Queens and the rest of the deck change back to normal and the selection has vanished! To conclude, you simply pluck it out of thin air! Truly a masterpiece of card magic.
2. Coins Across and Back
This clever routine delights audiences with precocious coins jumping back-and-forth, penetrating through your hand, vanishing and re-appearing in an unexpected place. Each phase more inexplicable than the previous. And the surprise ending is one of the most beautiful moments of magic ever conceived! In this lesson, Harlan has replaced the old suspicious prop while retaining all the incredible magic. You’ll learn to master every move, as the sleights involved are not knuckle-busters. Plus, you’ll learn the all-important timing and misdirection that makes this routine as much fun to perform as it is to watch! Once you see the reactions you can get, you’ll know you’ve found your favorite coin routine.
3. Magic Ranch
When it comes to misdirection, Tommy Wonder was a master, and this humorous routine stands as a perfect example. What begins as a simple (yet strong) card trick, soon turns surprisingly off-beat as a plastic egg suddenly appears on the table next to the spectator and far away from the performer. It’s a truly jaw-dropping moment perfectly orchestrated to amaze and amuse! Not only does the egg seem to appear on its own, it also contains the spectator’s chosen card, and the rest of the deck changes to all Ace of Spades! This trick is strong, and memorable, enough to stand on its own, and you’ll love the misdirection technique.
4. The Tamed Card
In this lesson, you’ll learn a “Wild Card”-style routine which starts out funny and ends up fantastic. When a selected card is found to be different from a packet of predictions, the perplexed performer tries to change it to match them. Instead, much to his (and everyone’s) surprise, the packet changes card-by-card until they all match the selection! It’s so good, everyone will swear they’ve seen the front and back of each card before and after all the changes. And Harlan’s new, slightly-modified version makes this killer routine more practical than ever, putting it well within the reach of any magician comfortable with basic card handling.
5. Shrink, Fall, Squeeze
This lesson features a full routine filled with crazy card contortions! First, the card box visibly shrinks to half its size moments after removing the deck. It’s an eye-catching opener! Then, the pips on the faces of the cards fall down to one end when the deck is tapped on the table. It looks as weird as it sounds! After restoring the deck back to its original condition (and performing your favorite card trick), the full-size deck is crammed into the half-sized card box! The ultimate visual ending to these eye-popping physical impossibilities!
6. Inflation
This lesson contains two “hidden gems”… you know, the kind of quick trick that might be overlooked by some, but plays so strong, people love it, remember it, and request it. Audience-pleasing magic at its best! The first one finds the performer in a wistful mood describing a summer’s day at the beach as colorful tissue is torn into tiny pieces. Unexpectedly, the pieces are fused together into the form of a paper beach ball which is inflated and given away as a souvenir! The second trick features an altogether different kind of inflation as the performer tears a borrowed dollar bill in half, revealing that it’s now two dollars! Those two dollars somehow fuse themselves back into one in the spectator’s hands, although nothing ever leaves their sight. It’s virtually impromptu!
7. The Snail's Progress
You’ll learn how to make and use a very cleverly-constructed device which allows you to visibly shrink an entire deck of cards, slowly, little-by-little, in the weirdest way possible, while in full view! Eventually, the deck becomes so small, it completely vanishes! Although this effect does require some concentrated arts and crafts time, the results are definitely worth it. Plus, Harlan makes it much easier by providing brand-new, full-color artwork to get you started.
8. Déjà ReVurse
The special move at the heart of this lesson is so cool, you’ll love rehearsing it just to fool yourself in the mirror! Once you master it, you’ll have an engaging routine in which to feature it. First, a selected card reverses itself in the middle of the deck. Yes, we’ve seen that one before, but this time it’s different. When the card has been turned face-down, it instantly appears face-up again! Once again, it’s cleanly turned face-down, only to stubbornly appear face-up! Fed up, the card is removed from the deck, but it still appears face-up in the deck! Oh, and the card removed? It changes to a second selection! This nifty little routine requires no gimmicks.
9. Carpenter's Revenge
Once again some arts and crafts results in an incredibly cool device. This time, you’ll learn how to make a “quantum field generator” that allows two solid objects to occupy the same space at the same time… in this case, a knife through a card. The knife can be cleanly seen going right through the center of the card, yet the card remains undamaged. It’s quite puzzling! In this lesson, you’ll learn Harlan’s re-design which makes the construction a bit easier. And the brand-new handling allows the effect to be observed by a larger group.
10. Rubik's Card
The final lesson features what appears to be an antique game of some sorts… a box filled with blocks that have various card pips on each of their sides. It’s demonstrated that the blocks can be arranged to form a picture of any card. Then, the box is closed and set aside with the blocks in a random order. A card is chosen, and… when the box is opened… the blocks have re-arranged themselves to match the card! In this new version of the trick, everything can be examined as there is no gimmick involved!
