Issue #27 of Imagine is dedicated to magic and magic users, as usual the TSR UK magazine picks a theme and stays mostly with it in terms of articles. Some of them are pretty good, such as the one by Mike Lewis on how a society would deal with Magic Users, which can be pretty useful to put some texture into your world.

There is, however, the feeling throughout the magazine that the party is ending, it has felt for a while like it’s a bit deflated, often depending on reprints and while it keeps doing some fun stuff, such as developing their Pelinore campaign setting, there is little that is new about the magazine. With the benefit of us being in the future, it’s little surprise that it will close down in a few issues.

This feel of disappointment is put into words at the end of the magazine, with Don Turnbull’s columns making a balance of TSR UK’s five year anniversary, entitled: “Time to Celebrate — or Time to Contemplate?”… that sounds bad. If your boss called you up for a five year job review and said “You’ve been with us five years, time to celebrate or contemplate?”. You’d know you’re about to get fired.