Step-by-Step Instructions for Many Popular 3-D Puzzles

I bought this book with the cube together because my son wanted to learn how to play. Unfortunately, he told me that the book was a bit confusing and not as helpful. I decided to keep the book because now my youngest daughter wants to learn so maybe she finds it useful somehow.

These are GREAT! They are perfect "speed" or "racing" cubes! They don't bind or catch like the traditional cubes! These are very well made! Mine instantly became my favorite out of four cubes, one of which is a 1980 original!

Speed Solving the Cube is a book about learning how obtain fast solve times with a Rubik's cube. Whilst a lot of the content is good, the presentation is not so great (particularly for beginners) and this really kills it for me. As a guide of this sort, the book would benefit from having larger pages and being bound in a way that allows it to easily stay open on a particular page. That said, the smaller format means that it travels well.

The book starts with the history of the cube and notation for describing how to manipulate it. The notation is standard and not complicated, but it would still help to show examples of what a solved cube looks like after it's undergone a single R, L, r, x, etc move. This would just clarify any lingering concerns beginners might have. It would also help if it explicitly stated that clockwise and counter-clockwise are defined with respect to the face itself (i.e. if the face was facing you). The book then moves on to the so-called beginner's method, which is relatively slow but easy to learn. It's hard for me to comment on the quality of the explanations for this method because I already knew how to do most of it before getting the book. However, I do feel that the diagrams could be better: they show the cube rendered in 3-D with one corner pointing straight at you. This makes it ambiguous which is the front face, and you need to know this to perform the algorithm. Whilst you can extract this information from the text, it would be much better if the cubes were simply drawn at a different angle (say with the front face offset by only 20 degrees) so that the diagrams are self-explanatory.

The book then moves on to the CFOP (Cross, First 2 layers, Orient last layer, Permute last layer) method, which is probably the most popular speed cubing technique. This is nicely introduced and arguably it is to learn CFOP that a lot of people would be buying this book. The problem I have, however, is that CFOP is not presented in a digestible way and the CFOP chapter is little more than a list of algorithms. There are numerous ways it could have been presented better:
1. There are a small number of techniques you can learn that allow you to solve the first two layers intuitively. However, this is not even hinted at in the CFOP chapter, which instead gives you the impression that you have to learn 42 algorithms to solve the first two layers. Intuitive approaches are discussed somewhat in the following chapter on "Expert" techniques. The intuitive approaches are easier and should be discussed in those terms and discussed first, or people might miss them altogether.
2. Orienting the last layer is presented as a set of 57 algorithms. This known as "one look OLL". However, it's possible to orient the last layer in two steps (two look OLL) with only 10 algorithms. This slower approach, which is initially very helpful, is not mentioned.
3. Permuting the last layer (PLL) is a collection of 21 algorithms. Again, it's possible to solve it in two steps (which is not mentioned) but since the algorithm count is already relatively low this is less of a big deal.
4. No attempt is made to help you remember the algorithms. There are many motifs shared across OLL and PLL (e.g. RUR'U') and a good guide would highlight these using colour, brackets, or spacing between characters. It makes the algorithms massively easier to digest when this is done. This is a basic way of presenting things (e.g. it's why we add spaces in phone numbers) and it should be implemented in any reference guide worth its salt.
5. The book should be doing work for you, and not just be a list of algorithms. It should be suggesting an order for learning OLL and PLL and should in the process point out relationships between algorithms. This really aids in learning and isn't done.
6. It would help to list the the probabilities of seeing the cube in each PLL and OLL state.

For the reasons above, I have not used this book at all for learning CFOP. Instead I have used videos from Paradox Cubing and, more importantly, the well-presented algorithms on badmephisto.com It is really for this reason that the book gets two stars: it's a fail for teaching CFOP.

Moving on from CFOP are some advanced speedcubing techniques. Here, the discussion on the first two layers is good, and there is plenty of helpful advice (with nice examples) that should help people improve their times. The rest of the chapter deals with more advanced techniques for influencing the last layer whilst solving the first two. I haven't got to this stage yet, so can't comment on the text. However, it's worth pointing out that the author is one of the inventors for some of these techniques, so likely the descriptions are good. If you're already fairly knowledgeable on CFOP, the it might be worth buying the book for this chapter alone.

The next two chapters are on the 4x4x4 and 5x5x5 cubes. I don't own these and currently have no plans to learn them, so I can't comment on those chapters.

Chapter 9 is on the 2x2x2 cube. I do own this and part of the reason I bought this book was because it covered it. Unfortunately, only 7 pages are devoted to the 2x2x2 cube and only one approach to solving it is described. If you want to learn more about the 2x2x2 cube, then you're better off looking elsewhere.

The book ends with a couple of pages of general tips and how to make a few pretty patterns from a solved cube.

Overall, I find myself using this book very little indeed and instead obtaining information from freely available PDFs and webpages. This is a pity, since there is room in the market for a well written and well presented speedcubing book. Unfortunately, this isn't it.

The rigid binding.... How this could have been overlooked is beyond me. Makes me wonder whether the hard copy of the book was tested at all on anyone, before it went to press. You can't work the cube and hold the book open at the same time very easily. You either have to bend the hell out of the book to make it lay flat, on every page you go to, or cover up part of the book with a heavy object, to hold it down. Stupid. It would have been so easy to just put it in a spiral binding or something else that will stay open on its own. They need to re-issue this book with a proper binding and stop printing this nonsense rigid copy. This is such a huge, stupid blunder, that I feel like I have to dock it by a star. My real rating is probably more like 4.5 stars, but I'm rounding down to avoid a perfect 5/5 score.

Other than that, the book is fantastic. It doesn't cover every speedcubing subject and technique, but it's a wonderful starting point. Supplement this book with Badmephisto's Youtube videos and website, and you will be pretty much set for learning how to speedcube, both when you have the internet in front of you and when you don't. My personal best on a 3x3 is 16.4 seconds. This book helped a lot to get me there.

This book seems best suited to people who already know how to solve the cube and who would like to find out how to improve their solutions. In my case, I hit a wall with my homebrew solution at about 60 seconds. While 1 minute solves are nice, it's not impressive in a world where a 20 second solve is not terribly competitive. This book seems to have the solution for that. It's too early to claim success, but what I've worked through so far is very good.

Would this book be suitable for a cubing novice? That's a tough call. The book does start from scratch teaching a basic solution, but I feel other resources online are a little clearer for the absolute beginner. However, a dedicated learner could work entirely from the book. Just keep in mind that pace is very quick, and the author doesn't do that much hand holding.

Would this book be suitable for an experienced speed cuber? That's hard to say, since I'm not in that category. If you follow another solving system, the book should be a very easy introduction to the authors strategy. I suspect that no matter where you are, you'll get a few new algorithms and tricks. There's also the 2x2x2, 4x4x4 and 5x5x5 solutions, which ought to provide additional value to the hardcore cuber.

This book is deceptively short. Although it weighs in at barely 160 pages, there's really a lot of content if you work through the material. It's taken a week to work through the first 50 pages, and that's just the intro material. I suspect it will be months, if not years, before I've even come close to exhausting what the book has to offer. In that regard, it's a tremendous value, and I can wholeheartedly recommend the book.

I had tried to learn the so-called "speed cubing" methods online and had been completely frustrated. Dan Harris lays it all out perfectly: it is very easy to follow and understand. That doesn't mean that the technique is all that easy to learn: with a massive amount of algorithms to memorize it will certainly be an undertaking of some months before you can claim complete mastery of the CFOP method.
The sections on the 2x2, 4x4, and 5x5 cubes are also very easy to follow. There is one typo that I found in the 5x5 chapter. The algorithms in Table 8.3, p125 are wrong: they are written (R r) U (R' r') U (R r) (U2 u2) (R' r') (R r) and (R2 r2) U (R2 r2) U (R2 r2) (U2 u2) (R2 r2). I spent a frustrating 10 minutes trying to figure out why I couldn't complete the centers. I found that the correct algoritms are (R r) U (R' r') U (R r) U2 (R' r') and (R2 r2) U (R2 r2) U (R2 r2) U2 (R2 r2).
At the end of the book there is also a chapter that has algorithms for all sorts of cool patterns that can be applied to an already finished cube.
This is a great book and no true Rubik's fanatic should be without it!

I taught myself much of the methodology outlined in this book by scrounging around the Internet for various algorithms, etc. Dan Harris' website ([...]) was instrumental in teaching me how to plan ahead, and he's used his skills at creating written tutorials for a very hands-on hobby to write an excellent book.

This book has several advantages over the way that most of us have had to learn our way around the cube. First, it's laid out in a linear fashion, so ideas are introduced to the reader in a very organized way, interspersed with lots of examples. Second, through the format of a published book, a comprehensive set of the many algorithms needed for a complete speedsolving solution are presented in a bound paper copy. This is perfect for someone who wants to carry the book and a cube in their backpack or messenger bag and keep notes about which algorithms are most comfortable, which have been committed to memory, etc. I bought this book specifically for Dan's great presentation of the last layer orientation algorithms, which I have yet to learn. Having all of the algorithms organized in such a thoughtful way, in a medium that I can easily carry with me is exactly what I've needed.

Great work, Dan!

Excellent compilation of algorithms that work on most any advanced method. My only problem is that the text sometimes is hard to read as it is covered by the spine, and the book is hard to have open and read an algorithm as you are preforming it, it keeps closing on itself. This would be an easy 5 stars if it was spiral bound.

Speedsolving the Cube does include a beginner method, one that segues directly into intermediate and advanced methods. This book fills in all the gaps by explaining the history, terminology and, most importantly, the algorithms for speed solving. I'm currently working on F2L, and I can see that there is enough content here to keep a cuber going at all levels of ability. This is a great portable resource.

I think this book is very well written. Dan Harris clearly knows his way around a Rubik's cube. My favorite part of the book was the section on the history of the cube and the stats.

Even though the book is good, it is difficult to solve the cube without actually seeing someone do it. I learned how to solve the Rubik's cube from a YouTube video by Dan Brown. I think his YouTube user name is Pogobot.

Brandon Simpson

After you learn in the first few paragraphs what's the meaning of the letters and apostrophes used on the algorithm to solve the cube, you get stuck because the algorithms in this book, at least for the 2X2 cube doesn't work at all. I have watched a 10 minute clip on YouTube and managed to solve it without issues with completely different algorithm from the one written in this book.

I've been impressing the kids and teachers at school with a one minute solve, but using this book I plan to master the CFOP system which is extremely hard to comprehend if not in a book. All I have to do now is memorize like 140 more algorithms...

Speedsolving the Cube does include a beginner method, one that segues directly into intermediate and advanced methods. This book fills in all the gaps by explaining the history, terminology and, most importantly, the algorithms for speed solving. I'm currently working on F2L, and I can see that there is enough content here to keep a cuber going at all levels of ability. This is a great portable resource.

I think this book is very well written. Dan Harris clearly knows his way around a Rubik's cube. My favorite part of the book was the section on the history of the cube and the stats.

Even though the book is good, it is difficult to solve the cube without actually seeing someone do it. I learned how to solve the Rubik's cube from a YouTube video by Dan Brown. I think his YouTube user name is Pogobot.

Brandon Simpson

After you learn in the first few paragraphs what's the meaning of the letters and apostrophes used on the algorithm to solve the cube, you get stuck because the algorithms in this book, at least for the 2X2 cube doesn't work at all. I have watched a 10 minute clip on YouTube and managed to solve it without issues with completely different algorithm from the one written in this book.

I've been impressing the kids and teachers at school with a one minute solve, but using this book I plan to master the CFOP system which is extremely hard to comprehend if not in a book. All I have to do now is memorize like 140 more algorithms...