Subject: Review: MacIntyre's The Woman Between the Worlds

From: [email-masked] (shsilver)
Date: 16 May 94 14:39:51 GMT

On 23 November, 1898, an invisible woman approaches a London tattoo-shop
asking to receive a full-body tattoo so she can appear in public.  After
overcoming the shop-owner's cynicism, mostly with money, he agrees to
complete the woman's tattoo.  Thus begins F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre's
first novel.

The Woman Between the Worlds is a first person account of the events
which follow that fateful night in Victorian England and a straneg
other realm whose inhabitants are invisible to humans since they only
reflect ultraviolet light (humans appear shadowy to these aliens).  The
other realm has been taken over by a tyrant known as the Dreadful Eye
and the invisible woman, Vanessa, is a rebel who has fled to Victorian
London to escape from his forces and try to restore her world to the way
it was.

Perhaps the strongest point of MacIntyre's book is his ability to
capture the style of Victorian writers.  The less fantastic portions of
the book can be read as if they came directly from a late Victorian
diarist, and even the fantastic parts read as if written by H.G. Wells
or some other Victorian author.  At the same time, MacIntyre's prose is
easier to read than much of the Victorian prose it is based on.

I very much found myself comparing TWBtW to another recent novel set in
Victorian England:  Anno Dracula by Kim Newman.  Like Newman's book,
TWBtW is a who's who of Victorian England, although MacIntyre restrains
himself by limiting his cameos to actual Victorians, mostly occultists. 
Appearances are made by William Yeats, Arthur Conan Doyle, George
Bernard Shaw, Sir William Crookes, Bram Stoker, Edith Bland, and of
course, the king of Victorian occultists, Aleister Crowley, who plays a
major role in the book.

Steven H Silver               |         "When I get a little money, I
Indiana University            |         buy books; and if any is left,
[email-masked]      |         I buy food and clothes."
[email-masked]        |         -Erasmus:  In Praise of Folly