To answer your questions– I am not a Time Lord.

So, the Jane Austen Centre in Bath, has unveiled a forensic recreation of Jane Austen.

Mary Robinette Kowal

Allow me to tell you a story, that is purely fiction.

Jane Austen was very ill in 1817 and her family called for the Doctor. Though this good gentlemen did his best, there was nothing that could be done for her in that time. In another, later time, it could be imagined that much might be done to aid her.

If such a thing occurred, gentle reader, and the authoress were taken into a box of cobalt blue, thence to find herself in another era, how would she thank the man who saved her life? Perhaps, if you choose to entertain such thoughts, by writing him into a story– into every story, in the hopes that he would see and understand how deeply grateful she was.

It is is a pretty fiction, is it not?

Did you know you can support Mary Robinette on Patreon?
Become a patron at Patreon!

13 thoughts on “To answer your questions– I am not a Time Lord.”

  1. Mary,

    To ask a semi-serious question. How much did this creep you out when you first saw it?

  2. I fear I can only agree with some slight hesitation. It’s as pretty a story as ever flowed from a pen, to be sure.

    Fiction? If you say so, I suppose.

  3. What a plot twist.

    And beautiful foreshadowing.

    Surprising, yet inevitable.

    And I’ quite sure that’s how you came up with the idea for the WE podcast episode “What to do When Truth is Stranger than Fiction” …

Comments are closed.

Scroll to Top