User talk:Thefool

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Mysterious Stranger

On October 29 2002, Random House published David Blaine's Mysterious Stranger: A Book of Magic. Part autobiography, part history of magic, and part armchair treasure hunt, the book also includes instructions on how to perform card tricks and illusions.

The treasure hunt, Blaine's $100,000 Challenge, was devised by game designer Cliff Johnson, creator of The Fool's Errand, and solved by Sherri Skanes on March 20 2004, 16 months after the book's publication.

• The Official Solution
• The Winner's Tale

Sources

• Mysterious Stranger, Copyright 2002 by David Blaine. Published 2002, in the United States and Canada, by Villard Books, a division of Random House, Inc. IBSN 0-375-50573-3. First Edition.
• David Blaine's $100,000 Challenge Solved

Mysterious Stranger

• David Blaine's $100,000 Challenge Solved

This does not appear to be a reliable source. Do you have something that confirms winner from a published source that has editorial board or reputation for fact checking ? -- The Red Pen of Doom 20:26, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

---

Well, it is the website of the person who designed and executed the treasure hunt. You decide.

Thefool (talk) 20:34, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Can you point to where in the site it identifies itself as the site of the treasure hunt designer? -- The Red Pen of Doom 22:23, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

At David Blaine's $100,000 Challenge Solved, the treasure hunt designer, Cliff Johnson (displayed in the uppermost right Flash menu), is referred to in the book and on the web page as “the son of John who nearly stepped of a cliff” (and at the bottom of the same page, the chronology is written in first person). Thefool (talk) 23:39, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

RE: Books as sources

Books published by normal publishing methods certainly count as reliable sources. Self published books / vanity press books and books published by fringe presses that only print POV / self promotional material do not count as reliable sources.-- The Red Pen of Doom 22:20, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Interesting, I never would have considered a division of Random House as a fringe press... regardless, here's a dilemma. How would one go about describing the contents of such a "self promotional" book by a public figure without referring to the book itself? Thefool (talk) 23:31, 30 November 2008 (UTC)