Cameron Francis’ Sudden Impact is a seven effect exploration of a magical exchange or transformation of one playing card for another while isolated in a playing card box. When you first see it, it looks quite magical. However, there are three major issues with this release.

First, the seven effects range from fair to good. None are great nor particularly memorable. All are within the reach of most. One caveat is that most of the effects require a double lift - a move that is easy to perform poorly as it is on this disk. Magicians like Bob White and Aaron Fisher have devoted whole lessons on performing it well while others like Eugene Burger have eliminated it from their repertoire. Why point this out? If you are going to use the move, please do it well. It looks obvious if you don’t.

The gimmick is clever and well made from standard Bicycle stock. The construction of the gimmick is well within the reach of most. This is second issue. Most have the needed materials on hand making the $29.95 price high for something you can make yourself.

The third issue is poor crediting. For example, there is no mention of Christopher Carey or Doc Eason during the explanation of Sudden Waltz. During Sudden Impact, a Paul Harris switch is explained. Francis could not recall the name and says it will be listed in the credits. I couldn't find them.

Like too many releases today, this should have been published in magazine. It would have reached more for a more reasonable price and received a far better review.