Things We’ve Learned About Mary Robinette Kowal Today

She may in fact be Jane Austen.

(for comparison)

Seriously, that’s just freaky. But now the novels make even more sense.

48 Comments on “Things We’ve Learned About Mary Robinette Kowal Today”

  1. I vote Highlander.

    Why, that’s just silly! She’s obviously some sort of daywalking vampire.

  2. I clicked the link expecting one of those “squint-and-you’ll-see-it-if-you-wish-really-hard” things, but wow! That likeness is eerie! Are we sure the researchers didn’t just give up, copy her face, and call it a day?

  3. I think whoever did the reconstruction of Austen just got stuck and said, “Fuck it. Mary Robinette Kowal writes Austen-eque novels; let’s make Austen look Kowal-esque..”

  4. Interesting. I just read the somewhat more detailed account in The Guardian. The artist seems to have taken Cassandra Austen’s portrait, eyewitness accounts, and pictures of Austen’s collateral descendents to produce this waxwork. It is, in short, as good a guess as to her appearance as we are likely to get– short of digging up Austen’s skeleton in Winchester Cathedral and giving her skull the same treatment that Richard III’s remains recently received.

    That would be pretty ghoulish, though. And probably futile– there likely IS no skeleton there, since MRK and Jane Austen are one and the same person.

  5. Huh. And I’m sure it’s *TOTALLY* a coincidence that she puts a Doctor Who “easter egg” in all her novels.

  6. MRK (or should I say Jane?), your denials are suspiciously vehement and specific.

  7. Wow. I…am duly impressed.

    And this reminds me that I NEED “Shadows Beneath” worse than a heroin junkie needs a hit in mid-withdrawal.

    ‘Scuse me while I run and get my wallet and get on Amazon.

  8. Note that she continues to ignore the “daywalking vampire” and “painting in the attic” theories.

  9. “She may in fact be Jane Austen.”

    Didn’t we already know this? I kinda thought it was a given.

  10. “Does she sparkle in the sun?”
    To steal a line from a comment thread over on Tor.com: Vampires should not sparkle… unless you douse them in white phosphorus

  11. “Does she sparkle in the sun?”
    To steal a line from a comment thread over on Tor.com: Vampires should not sparkle… unless you douse them in white phosphorus

    Now that Charlie Stross has released “The Rhesus Chart”, you can get to see whether vampires sparkle in the Laundryverse or not…

    If I could figure out how to set a hidden spoiler, I’d put the answer (and there is a definitive answer in the book) here…

  12. If I could, I would post the side by side I just did… its’ super uncanny. I emailed it to you John, so you could consider posting it.

  13. Aunti Laura:

    I haven’t mostly because I don’t know what the rights situation is for the Jane Austen picture — I have to see if I can legally post it.

  14. Apart from the fact that the resemblance is downright spooky, reincartation has not been scientifically disproved . . . .
    BTW, has anybody heard/read what MRK has to say on the resemblance?

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