Planet Magrathea is now closed

I have been writing about Douglas Adams and Hitchhiker's Guide almost without pause for various books and magazines since Douglas died in May 2001. I am thoroughly bored with the subject and have said all there is to say. I am a professional writer and journalist but it has reached the point where I am rarely asked to write about anything else.

In late 2004 I resolved to stop writing about Hitchhiker's Guide after 6th May 2005, which was at that time the projected release date for the film. I have told plenty of people about this decision over the past few months. I had intended to keep Planet Magrathea going beyond then because I know that a lot of people find it a useful site and it just about pays for itself through Amazon and Google links.

As of today I have decided to just say 'sod it' and pack the whole thing in. This is partly because I have recently been adding ten or more news items every day and it is becoming too much hassle. It is also partly because I have for some time been fed up with the negative attitude of the Douglas Adams estate who for four years have been happy to make money from projects that I have worked on or even initiated but have otherwise been thoroughly unhelpful and antagonistic towards me. Let them keep reissuing the books every few months (five new editions in four years - you do the maths). I hope it makes them happy.

Now I have a similar antagonism from Disney/BVI who, it seems, are unable to accept negative criticism of their product. And my views on the quality of the product they have created do not need repeating here.

But the thing that has tipped the balance for me is the unwarranted, ill-informed personal abuse and libel which has been directed towards me on the IMDB, livejournal and many other websites in the wake of my review of the film. Although those people who took the trouble to read my long review were, in the most part, extremely complimentary about my analysis and as dismayed as I am about the route that the film has taken, they have unfortunately been drowned out on many discussion boards and forums by people who refuse to accept even the possibility that something connected with Hitchhiker's Guide may not be perfect.

I have been widely criticised for wanting the film to exactly replicate the book, even though I never suggested any such thing, and I have been quoted as saying other things that I have never said. I have read that I know nothing about Hitchhiker's Guide and that I don't have any understanding of how books get adapted into films. I have read that I went into the screening determined to dislike the film, that I made copious notes during the screening of every minor deviation from the book, and even that I have done nothing but criticise this film all along. None of these are even slightly true and some of them, under other circumstances, would be actionable. If I can read these things, other people can read them too.

I could put up with the pathetic, jealous ramblings of those sad types who feel the need to criticise something they haven't read, describing something they haven't seen. But what has broken my will is the vitriolic personal abuse and libel which has started spreading across the net from various individuals who don't know me. (A more paranoid person than myself might think that some of these, the ones who have joined discussion boards in the past week and since then posted on no other subject than myself, were studio plants. But not I.) In particular, I am fed up with the no-lifes who constantly post abusive messages on this site's guestbook and then post more abusive messages complaining that the previous ones have been deleted. It is these people in particular who are responsible for the removal from the web of this unique resource. Nobody else in the world has the network of Adams-related contacts that I have, or sufficient knowledge of his life and work to be able to put any piece of news into context, which is why there is no other site providing a service anything like this, and from now on there won't even be this. These people can be found on the IMDB board crowing about their work - please direct any complaints to them.

I would like to thank everyone who has been so supportive over the past year or two, everyone who has responded pleasantly to my reviewing of the film - whether or not we ultimately agree with each other - and everyone who has submitted news items and links to this site. My collection of Hitchhiker's Guide material and interviews will be offered to the SF Foundation and anything they don't want will be otherwise disposed of.

I will remain a member of ZZ9 and some of my unseen, archive interviews will continue to be published in the club magazine - but someone else will have to edit them. I may occasionally lurk on Hitchhiker's Guide-related sites or forums if I'm bored, but as of now I will never write another word, in print or on-line, about Douglas Adams or The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

MJ Simpson
Leicester, 17th April 2005