Shadow Web
by N M Browne

Release Date: 4th Feb 2008
Publisher: Bloomsbury
ISBN: 978 0 7475 9345 4
RRP: £6.99

Historical fiction made perfect for teenagers; they'll learn something without realising it

Jess is just another teenager – bored one night, she decides to satisfy her vanity and googles her own name on the internet. At first, there’s nothing of much interest – until she comes across an intriguing website authored by one of namesakes. On a whim, she decides to make contact and suddenly she has arranged to meet this other ‘Jessica’. For comfort, she takes along her docile friend, Jonno to meet this Jessica, but no one could have anticipated what would happen next.

They are identical in every way, except for the clothes they are wearing. But when they touch, each of them are thrown into each other’s world and for Jess, this is the beginning of a nightmare; where her London no longer exists, where she is perpetually harassed by the men around her and there is an oddly Germanic tinge to everything.

In some respects, Shadow Web is akin to an artist’s impression of how the world would be if certain historic world events had never taken place. A world where there was a Secret Service and Constabulary that scared everyone out of their wits, a world where women were still very much the second-class citizen, a world of terrorist factions and freedom fighters – a world hugely removed from Jess’ civilised London. Browne throws in some nice touches, like the reference to a painting by ‘A Hitler’ hanging on the wall in the alternate London and it is all faintly credible as a possible present if events had followed a different route in the past.

Whilst the alternate world theorem has been done to near death by some many great authors, what gives this plot a new lease of life for Browne is the clever integration of modern technology and culture. References to the internet, Google, the ipod and mobile phones all help draw a picture of our civilisation in 2008. The fact that the story hinges on some fantastical sci-fi technology that somehow links the other world’s ‘Root’ to our world’s ‘Internet’ and that this connection also somehow allows the two Jessica’s to swap places is novel and thought-provoking. How much do we understand about our ‘Internet’ and what it may or may not be able to interact with?

Shadow Web is a highly imaginative and entertaining read, whilst being close enough to reality to allow the reader to empathise with the heroine.

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