New Herbert Becker book Exposing Blaine

[Guest]

Just saw this on amazon.com, Herbert Becker has a book called THE MAGIC SECRETS OF DAVID BLAINE: THE STREET MAGICIAN EXPOSED due out the end of this month. Here's a link to the amazon.com listing:
Becker book on Blaine

You may recall Becker as making a media splash with his previous exposure book, which Copperfield took legal action to stop (with some success, apparently). Becker appeared on Maury Povich exposing magic to promote his last book. Hopefully his new book won't warrant much air time...

[Bob Farmer]

Herbert Becker is a hack writer from Montreal. His previous books are so badly written, it's amazing he keeps getting published. I'm surprised that David Blaine hasn't stopped the use of his photo on the cover of this sure-to-be pathetic piece of trash.

[Guest]

Do not give this guy any publicity and hopefully he will go away like the Masked Magician did..
No idea what these hacks are trying to do to magic, but if we keep them out of sight / they should remain out of mind.....
Rennie

[Guest]

Amazon runs reviews supposedly by customers, in this case, anonymous.

Regarding Becker's earlier book there were five reviews. The first three:

A waste of money,
You won't find all the secrets of magic in this book, it's more of a David Copperfield advertisement, with a hole chapter of his credits, along with some generic secrets that you can find in library books.

The Ultimate Rip-Off !!!
Who on earth is Mr. Becker?? He pretends to be a magician. To me he looks more like somebody who had access to some of these secrets but never bother verify them. The secret of the water levitation is obviously stupid. probably Mr. Becker did not have enough money to buy the plans from a real magician, so he invented. A book for voyeurs with nothing better to do in their lives. Could be done so much better. And we are killing forests to print that ?????

Pseudo explanations of popular illusions
Mr. Becker offer us a collection of inept so called secrets of popular illusions. With the exception of one or two sections, the drawings are of poor quality and the secrets are unworkable. The chapter on David Copperfield is stupid. Who is Mr. Becker trying to fool. Generally badly written. Fail to explain the true beauty of the art of magic. Not recommended. Suggest instead any book by Mark Wilson or in the Dover collection.

The greatest and most insightful book I have ever read.
This is the book for every one to have. After reading this book I feel like I have been taken inside the world of magic and see things from a different point of view. This is the book for everyone to own if your (sic) as curious as I am.

I'll let the members of the Genii Forum decide if Becker reviewed his own book. I can't imagine his current tome being any better.

[Brian Marks]

Originally posted by Bob Farmer:
Herbert Becker is a hack writer from Montreal. His previous books are so badly written, it's amazing he keeps getting published. I'm surprised that Davod Blaine hasn't stopped the use of his photo on the cover of this sure-to-be pathetic piece of trash.

Blaine probably isn't acting because if he did, he would be giving this guy unnecessary credit. And he would be marketing this guys's book. "You see, even Blaine doesn't want you to see it!"

[Guest]

Maybe Blaine and Copperfield should hire someone to write a book exposing Herbert Becker.

[jason156]

I see this hack writer is back, this time purporting to reveal the secrets of professional card magic.