The Woman Between the Worlds

by F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre

In a variation of H. G. Well's The Invisible Man, a tattoo artist in Victorian England receives a request for a full-body tattoo from an invisible female scientist from another dimension, which she seeks to escape by becoming visible. A first novel. Original.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction

311 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

Reviews

[Beth Burnett · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book so many years ago, I had actually forgotten the title until I found it in a used bookstore recently. I remember being enthralled with it back then - I guess twenty years changes a lot. Or perhaps just my attention span. The story is still interesting and I enjoy the characters. But I found it dragged quite a bit. Still, it's a fun fantasy read and I liked it well enough to say if you enjoy tattoos and science fiction/fantasy, you'll probably enjoy this.

[Althea Ann · Rating 1 out of 5]

19th century England. A young tattoo artist is approached by an invisible woman, who wants a full-body tattoo, to make herself visible. Unfortunately, her troubles don't end at invisibility. She's from an alternate dimension full of Lovecraftian horrors, and is pursued by an Ultimate Evil Villain called the Dreadful Eye. The tattooist, who falls in love with the woman sight unseen (ha ha), attempts to help her in her quest to free her dimension of tyranny, assisted by a young Aleister Crowley.

OK, sounded quirky enough to be interesting.

Unfortunately, the book suffered from poor research and/or simple ignoring of facts.

I think the portrayal of Crowley was meant to be funny, but it was wildly inaccurate.

More bothersome were the descriptions of tattooing. The first thing I noticed was that the book states that the protagonist was first employed "sterilizing his uncle's needles." The concept of sterilization for surgical intruments was only introduced in the latter half of the 19th century. I doubt very much whether tattooists bothered, at that point in time.
Then, the author goes on to demonstrate a profound lack of knowledge of tattooing, stating, for example, that tattooing the face (genitals, etc) would involve life-threatening surgery to remove the skin, rearrange the veins and blood vessels, insert the ink, and then replace the skin!!! What!!!???
I know several people with facial tattoos, it's no biggie. Tattoo ink is just barely subcutaneous, it doesn't involve veins, blood vessels, or surgery AT ALL.
This mis-assumption involves a lot of the book, so it's really quite disturbing to the reading experience.
Also, since the ink IS subcutaneous, it doesn't actually color the skin - it shows THROUGH the skin. So if you tattooed someone whose skin was invisible, they would NOT pass for normal, because the texture of their skin would still not be visible. Rubbing foundation makeup all over your body would work much better.

ANYWAY.
The villains are lifted in direct "tribute" to Lovecraft. (Much chanting of "Tekeli-li" is heard). However, it kinda just comes off as unoriginal.

And finally, I didn't think the quality of the writing, in general, was really up to professional standards.

[Reacher · Rating 2 out of 5]

I sought this novel out after reading Corey Kilgannon's amazing New York Times piece on F. Gwynplaine Macintyre called Froggy's Last Stand. There's also a short video on the story.

The Woman Between the Worlds wasn't fabulous, but it had some unique ideas, a non-standard ending, wove in some interesting historical context, and showed ample humor and even some tenderness.

I found myself frequently peeling back the jacket cover to stare into the young face of the author, wondering what changed inside the mind that produced this novel and the diseased one that lit himself on fire decades later. Clearly, quite a lot.

[Madison Manske · Rating 1 out of 5]

The book was entertaining with a lot of description in terms of geography and the way the creatures looked, but it overall seemed to lack historical accuracy and was a bit all over the place considering the late 1800s time frame.

[Azra · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was pretty good - weird, funny and even fairly Lovecraftian. It also had Aleister Crowley, W. B. Yeats and other members of the Golden Dawn.

There were one or two scenes that seemed to have glaring anachronisms that almost took me out of the story (when were phones invented? I didn't think most English homes had them in the late 1800's...) but for the most part, it was pretty entertaining.

[Liam · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was great fun. Light-hearted Lovecraftian romp about a Victorian London tattooist who meets a woman from another dimension, with appearances by Alister Crowley, WB Yeats, GB Shaw and others. Funny, fast-paced and at times even moving.

[Mindy]

I'm over a hundred pages into this book and it's just really slow. All they're doing is running from place to place being chased by invisible assassins. I may or may not pick it back up later.