The book's audience is female, and the messages it contains about technology range from mildly positive to strongly negative. It communicates clearly that technology can be dangerous, but also that its dangers can be offset and its hazards overcome by the use of older, non-technological methods, methods which are only available to women (e.g., intuition, psychic ability, second sight). 

The story itself is deceptively simple. A young girl begins to dream about a boy trapped in a "Dark World" who calls out for help, and she discovers that this dream character is actually a real live boy, who is in fact a distant cousin. The boy, a computer "hacker," is hospitalized and in a coma, after having been found slumped, unconscious, at his computer. His mind has been stolen by a sinister computer genius from the future, and Meg (the girl) assumes the task of rescuing him, a task at which she is ultimately successful. Although the young boy (Gavin) is far more technologically competent than Meg, it is partly her own knowledge and use of technology that enables her to save him. 

The story opens with a dream sequence, and the first two chapters set up the conflict which provides the subtext for the entire story: the difference between the "natural" intuitive knowing of women and the technological "not-natural" knowing of men. The latter, although used primarily by men, is also available to female characters like Sue, Meg's sister, but intuitive knowing seems to be the exclusive province of women. "Gran Jenkins had second sight, and knew all about dreams and nightmares, and such things. . . . Meg also had the Sight," (2), "The Sight was a rare gift . . . .and Father didn't have it" (10). Meg has faith that her mother, who also has the Sight, will understand and explain her dream; she has no such confidence in her technologically competent father, and when her mother leaves to attend a funeral (and the death is a "natural" event, as opposed to, say, an automobile accident), Meg is left to resolve her dilemma without adult guidance.

 After Meg tells Sue about the troubling dreams, the two of them experiment with their father's computer (about which Sue knows considerably more than Meg) and the printer mysteriously prints a picture of the boy from Meg's dream. Meg decides to help Gavin despite her fears and misgivings, and Sue helps Meg acquire the necessary skills to enter the Dark World on her own terms. She does this by using instructions from a book called The Mysteries of Mind Travel, which explains techniques of progressive relaxation and self-hypnosis. The Dark World is a carefully constructed alternate reality, which turns out to be the inside of a computer. By assuming control of her access to the Dark World, Meg symbolically assumes control of this sophisticated technology, in contrast to Gavin, who has been lured into the Dark World against his will--his expertise has resulted in a loss of control.

 Meg mentally creates for herself a Quiet Place, and then a Deep Place, and constructs a lab in her Deep Place from which to initiate her rescue attempt. The lab is complete with sations are equally intriguing, especially that of Morgan le Fay. Not only are Morgan's magical powers emphasized, but the story contains several other references to symbols of paganism and witchcraft and presents them in a positive light, such as the pentacle sequence which eventually "short-circuits" the GOTO TEN loop. The Salleman is harder to analyze, but it is possible that the association is with Solomon, the wise biblical ruler whose solution to a dispute over possession of a child was to cut the child in two. The Salleman's objective was a similar division: to divide Gavin's mind from his body in order to possess his mind. In both cases the "wisdom" of the (male) ruler would have resulted in the death of the child.

 Through her juxtaposition of new technologies and ancient "magical" ways of knowing, and of characters and scenes from both the past and the future, Chetwin conveys a message which is unmistakably gender-inflected. The new, and by association male, technology is presented as unnatural, seductive, dark, and dangerous (bad), while the old intuitive magical ways, exclusively female, are natural, safe, and reliable (good), even if occasionally frightening. Both types of ability are double-edged; the boy is seduced and nearly lost because of his expertise with computers, and Meg is ambivalent about the Sight: "For the Sight usually warned of trouble and danger, and she didn't want that at all" (11). 

Although this story is not one which can be said to encourage girls to embrace technology (or boys either, for that matter), it does not discourage them, either. The messages about technology are ambiguous, while those about the special intuitive abilities of women are very positive, even suggesting that in many ways these abilities are superior to those of technologically competent men. For that reason, Out of the Dark World is a book I would recommend without hesitation to young girls. Chetwin and I see these issues in much the same way, and the book's perspective is identical to my own: technology is okay in its place, but ultimately it is not trustworthy, and it will certainly never take the place of intuition and magic.