SO LONG AND THANKS FOR ALL THE BOOKS

I have been involved in the UFO/Fortean scene for 56 years, contributing to, editing and publishing MUFOB and Magonia as print magazines, and continuing with the on-line Magonia Review. This is something which I have enjoyed greatly, and which has introduced me to many interesting and entertaining correspondents across the world, who have all contributed to the Magonian legacy.

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I have now passed my 80th birthday and have decided that I will retire from active involvement in the UFO/Fortean field. I have particularly felt the loss of the contribution and support of my two dear friends Peter Rogerson and John Harney, who have both died in the past few years. I have also realised that there are a lot of books not connected with Magonian topics that I really must read!

For these reasons I will be winding down Magonia Review as an active website, although I will of course maintain it as an archive resource. The site contains 1200 entries for books on a huge range of topics; the Review's archive sites carry another 700+ reviews extracted from the printed magazines. The magazine archive sites preserve the bulk of the articles published in the two print magazines, a total of over 500 reports, commentaries and essays. These reviews and articles have been contributed by some of the most influential writers and researchers in the fields covered by the magazine and websites. And of course there is Peter Rogerson's important legacy, the massive INTCAT listing of entity reports. I will do all I can to ensure these will remain available for future readers and researchers.

I don't have a definitive cut-off date on which I will stop adding new reviews, as there is still a backlog of titles submitted to us by authors and publishers - to whom I am immensely grateful for their generous co-operation over many years. There may even be one or two outstanding new books which I feel need to be added to the collection before finishing. However within the next couple of months the Magonia sites will be closed to new material.

Looking back on it I am amazed by what a massive creation Magonia and its spin-offs has become, nearly 60 years after it was started as the Merseyside UFO Bulletin by John Harney and Alan Sharp, a stencil duplicated bulletin for a local UFO group. Over the years we have had contributions from the most original and progressive writers in the UFO field from Britain, the USA, Europe and across the world. It would be invidious to pick out individuals, but a glance down the author listings on the blog pages will show who they are. In his Fortean Times tribute to Magonia when it ceased publication as a print magazine, Bob Rickard described them as writers "who were not afraid to challenge both the narrow-minded 'skeptical' bigots and the credulous following of 'nuts-and-bolts' flying saucery."

To them, and to those of you who have supported and enjoyed Magonia in all its incarnations, and to all my friends who have helped me in the work of producing and publishing it, my most sincere thanks, and I hope that you will still be able to enjoy the legacy that it has created.

• John Rimmer

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THE MAGONIA LEGACY:

Magonia Review:    https://pelicanist.blogspot.com/

Magonia Archive:     http://magoniamagazine.blogspot.com/

MUFOB Archive:     http://mufobmagazine.blogspot.com/

Book Review Archive:     http://mrobsr.blogspot.co.uk/

More Magonia:     http://moremagonia.blogspot.co.uk/

INTCAT Catalogue:     http://intcat.blogspot.co.uk/

Aldeburgh Platform:     http://aldeburghplatform.blogspot.co.uk/