Werner Miller has certainly been keeping busy!

Not long after the release of sub rosa 3 and 4 comes his newest book, EZ-Sqaure 5!

E-Z Square 5 is available as an ebook from Lybrary.com, available in English and in German.

As with previous books in the series, this one features a particular routine concerning magic squares. The major difference here being that these magic squares are created using playing cards, similar to Richard Wiseman's The Grid and Chris Wasshuber's Ultimate Magic Square, both of which are acknowledged in E-Z Square 5.

Werner Miller explores the possibilities through 3 main routines, and a bonus routine. The first routine is the simplest, in which the spectator generates a total by selecting 4 cards out of 16, and you quickly deal a 4 by 4 square with 16 different cards whose rows columns and diagonal give the same total. The second routine, which is my personal favorite, has the spectator cut off about half the deck, and you as the performer are able to create a 4 by 4 grid whose rows, columns, and diagonals are equal to the number of cut-off cards.

In the 3rd routine, the spectator cuts off a group of cards, and deals them into 2 piles, while the performer uses the remainder of the deck to create a 5 by 5 grid of cards. When the magic total is revealed, it proves to be the same as a number created from the top 2 values on the spectator's piles!

The bonus routine may be familiar if you've purchased Werner Miller's da capo 3, as it is Squaring the Cards. In this 4 by 4 magic square routine, the magic square's total is equal to the total of the remaining cards not used in the routine!

If you're nervous about handling the various arrangements and calculations required in normal magic square routines, EZ-Square 5 is an excellent choice, as the routining and use of playing cards takes care of much of the work automatically. As any Werner Miller fan already knows, not much more than basic card knowledge is required in his routines. I recommend E-Z Square 5 highly!