I dabble a little in Tarot stuff, and recently picked up a deck which was a departure for me: it’s called Tarot Illuminati and the cards have a very fancy, ornate artistic style. The deck, as most decks do, comes with a booklet which explains the cards.
What interested me about this particular deck was that I had heard that Kim Huggens, who collaborated with the deck’s artist Erik C. Dunne on the booklet, had developed a ton of extra material which had been cut from the final product due to the space constraints of the little printed book. She had incorporated this extra material into an e-book she was selling on the Kindle store. What an interesting opportunity to compare different versions of the same information! Is the e-book worth the extra $9.99? How about the deck’s companion Android app?
1) Breadth of Information
If I had to rank these from least to most, it would be app, then paper book, then e-book. The app has a little keyword section which pops up when you tap on a card, and an optional paragraph explanation. The paper book has a full page per card with both of these. The e-book has a full chapter per card, which discusses both the imagery on the card itself, and extra detail such as comparisons between this deck and more traditional representations.
2) Ease of Use
The app is the clear winner here. You can shuffle and deal with fun little animations, use pre-set card spreads or study single cards, and simply tap on an image when you want to see the little info screen. You can also see little correlations that the app will very neatly pull together for you, such as what suit the card is, or what other cards it relates to.
Of course, many tarot users do prefer the tactile feel of the actual paper cards. For these users, the e-book actually may be a wise purchase. It would be cumbersome to flip through the paper copy as you work with the cards, and similarly, you won’t pause to read a whole e-book chapter every time you draw a new card while you play with these. But if you’re like me and you’re happy to ‘read’ the cards intuitively, the depth the e-book offers is quite useful. Read the e-book first; then, you can absorb the extra information into your on-the-fly interpretations.
3) Overall Value
If you go for the whole bundle—deck, e-book, and app—you’re looking at an expensive package. The deck and booklet is currently listing on Amazon for $22.63. The e-book is $9.99. The app is $4.99. That’s pushing $40 for the whole deal. Be sure you really love this deck style before you commit! I was seduced by the pretty artwork, but found that the deck, as an actual thing to work with, didn’t gel with me. I appreciate the breadth the e-book offers, and the creative thinking Ms. Huggens showed by using the Kindle store to give her work a proper showing. But in the end, it proved to be too much information for me. I just didn’t care enough about this particular deck to put in the extra time to learn all that.
So I kept the app because I had it anyway, but the deck is in my for-sale basket. There is a nice specialty store in my area which sells these second-hand. I may get back a little cash on this one. Sorry, Kim Huggens! Good job on the e-book, but I just wasn’t that interested.
