Free From Filler By Euan Mccall Bingham.

When I read Mogs review of another of Euans book­lets More Deriv­a­tive P*sh I was intrigued enough to visit his site. When I saw the con­tent of his book­lets I was inter­ested. When I saw the types of reviews he was get­ting from the likes of Peter Duffie, I was sold. Unde­cided on which of his four book­lets to buy I made the hasty deci­sion to get the full col­lec­tion. I con­soled myself that at least my beer tokens were going to a fel­low Scot (cheers Euan), and it wasn’t the first or last time I’d spent a wad of cash on unseen magic. As fate would have it, I wasn’t dis­s­ap­pointed. A few days later an enve­lope arrived with my pur­chases, with a hand writ­ten note from Euan, thank­ing me and advis­ing me if I needed any help to con­tact him (nice touch). Now I haven’t had time to look through the mate­r­ial in detail, but from my rough browse I am very impressed. Heres a review of the book­let which I have had a chance to work­thru in detail, Free from Filler.

Euan has a straight for­ward writ­ing style and quickly gets down to describ­ing his card effects. He doesn’t mess about; most of the time he doesn’t bother to explain the effect. Straight into the moves, and you can tell he loves the art of card magic. His influ­ences are in strong evi­dence too, notably Duffie and Sad­owitz, and he always gives full or par­tial credit where appropriate.

Euans effects are just how I like them, short and punchy. If your look­ing for a 10 minute tour-de-force your not going to find it here. If your look­ing for direct card magic, you’ll find it in abun­dance. At this point I would nor­mally point out a few per­sonal favourites, but I can’t. Goto Euans site and take a look at the table of con­tents. The title of this book­let is bang on, Free From Filler. In addi­tion, the book­let includes some sleights which should be of inter­est to most, includ­ing notes on the pass and the rather inter­est­ing Scor­pion Change.

Do you get the feel­ing I liked this. Every­time I get a new deliv­ery through the door I am at pains to quickly iden­tify that one good effect out of the col­lec­tion which jus­ti­fies the price I paid. I did it with Euans work too; its on page 1, 2, 3 .….

Okay there are some down­sides. If your expect­ing a full on descrip­tion of each effect with pic­tures, your not going to get it. It may also stretch your magic library in terms of the ref­er­ences, some­thing I think Euan secretly enjoys. I get the feel­ing that Euan isn’t pre­sent­ing a set of fin­ished effects (although he is) but sim­ply pre­sent­ing his cur­rent think­ing. Rather than, aren’t I great, do this he seems to be say­ing this is what I’ve come up with, over to you.

His blog is also amus­ing and infor­ma­tive, but be aware it does use the richer aspects of our language.

Over­all:
Great stuff. I’m just a lit­tle p*ssed that I didn’t find out about Euan before he sold his back issues of the crimp on ebay.

Effects: 10/10
Qual­ity: 7/10
Value For Money: 9/10

Euan, can you make the cheque out to .… Actu­ally, can­cel that, just stop giv­ing away your effects for free on the boards.

this review was orig­i­nally pub­lished at Talk­magic Reviews

Related posts:

1. Card­board Capers By Euan Mccall Bingham
2. Review: 20 Things Marlo Didn’t Publish