Please post your thoughts here. Are Harry Lorayne's Apocalypse books recommended ?

They are awesome books. There are tons upon tons of magic in all the books. I would like to buy them all myself. You could probably live off the magic in these books.

If you want a great collection for a lot less money, stick with the Collected Almanac.

I, too, prefer Richard's Collected Almanac.

You can get it brand new (with shipping included!) for around $55.00.

Lots of good card and non-card stuff to have fun with.

I own Apocalypse and the material is top notch. You can't lose. I also agree that Richard's Almanac is great material. Get both and you're set for the rest of your magical life.

He's probably bidding on e-bay for the set of 1-3 Apocalypse which is available for the next 20 minutes. It's up to around $172 last I checked.

Harry Lorayne's Apocalypse set the standard for close-up magic in the 1980s and 1990s. Many of the works of the best of today's thinkers and doers in the world of card, coin, and varied close-up magic are represented in the pages of Apocalypse. Few publications before or after have had the consistent quality of material that was offered during the 20-year run of Apocalypse.

IMO, if you don't have Apocalypse, you are really missing out.

Joe Z.

Yes, but why is this urgent?

Lemme guess -
You and Harry have a bet as to how many responses you will get?

You are in line at the bookstore and they are closing in 1hr 45 mins?

You are on Celebrity Survivor and must have a double undercut shuffle routine to complete your Ambitious Aces routine?

Your mother asked for a birthday gift list?

I won't repeat what everyone else here has said about Apocalypse because I agree. Get it - you won't be sorry. The best price I have seen on the books is at 1MagicShop - $54.95 for each book. I think that is the lowest price you could possibly get it for. You can check them out at:

http://www.1magicshop.com/

I love Apocalypse as well. Harry will beat any advertised (even on the interent) price. If you go through him, you can get them autographed. For the folks who like Apocalypse, what effects have you found from older and more recent issues that you actually perform, or want to one day?

As magicgirl said, tne Apocalypse books are only $54.95 at http://www.1magicshop.com/
PLUS, if you order over $100 of merchandise, SHIPPING IS FREE.

I used to do the coins across in there.

And given the chance I will perform "Now!".

There are two coins through table methods in there I like.

There is a cute trick where a blank card in the cardbox sucks the ink off a selection.

Would you believe there is a cylinder and coins method in there that uses no gaff and where the vanish sequence starts two ahead? Really!

There is a copper silver coin transposition that happens leaving ungaffed coins in two spectator's hands even though it uses a gaff.

There is an oil and water handling that uses the full deck.

The Roth chink-a-chink, hanging coins and 'legendary four coin trick' are there.

Hope this helps,

Jonathan

I have had the pleasure of being fooled, badly fooled and fried by Joe with effects he has learned from Apocalypse. If you want to be kept busy for some time and learn some great effects, Apocalypse is a great place to start.

Courtney

How can you get them direct from Harry? His website only appears to offer his memory training material.

-bigwolf {*}

Try this site:

http://lorayne.port5.com/

Lower part of the page states "Autographs upon request".

If you are an experienced close-up magician, enjoy learning from books instead of CV’s these books are brilliant. Great insight into a great magic mind, contributions from some of the world’s greats. My recommendation is to take your time reading the book, there is so much great content that it’s easy to overlook a gem.

If I only could only buy one thing ever in magic it would be all the Apocalyses.

One too many only's in that last post. Sorry about that.

Agree, I would not trade anyone with Apocalypses.

There was a lot of bad blood between them, but apocalypse, Richards Almanac, pallbearers, Chronicles, Epilogue... so much fantastic material. If I had to give up one...I’d say ‘why are you trying to make me give up these great books?’