Uneven Keel

John Keel. Disneyland of the Gods. Amok Press, 1988.
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Again we have to report a sense of disappointment on picking up the latest offering from one of the great ufological gurus of our formative years. John Keel, whose Operation Trojan Horse formed, with Passport To Magonia, the twin pillars of the new ufology', here presents us with a warmed-over pan of scouse. Some good meaty bits, it' s true, but by and large it' s a bitty, picky rehash of a book.

Keel is still trotting out the defunct and debunked tales that once set the blood racing when we read his Ohio Valley Notebook in the pages of dear, dead FSR twenty years ago. Nothing much in this book seems to be later than the early seventies: the world has moved on, leaving John Keel in a quaint time warp. 

Elsewhere in this issue of Magonia Jacques Vallee defends himself against my somewhat similar strictures against his recent book Dimensions, and some of his points are well taken. It is quite a while since any of Keel's books have been in print. Maybe he has been involved in more recent research (we know he runs an active fortean group in New York), so perhaps this is just a taster of better things to come. On the other hand I observe the attempted return of psychedelic, and I hear that flared trousers have been noted in some of the more outré venues around town. Perhaps this book is another harbinger of the long threatened sixties revival. Oh dear.
  • John Rimmer, from Magonia 31, November 1988.

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