Jane Actually

ethnicity or when they had died. People could record their individual energy signatures before they died (for later identification), but that didn’t help those who’d died before the discovery of the afterlife.
    One could petition the AfterNet to verify one’s identity, but obviously the more famous a person one claimed to be, the harder it was to prove. And consequently the more famous an identity, the more claimants there were to it.
    The majority of the disembodied, however, were just happy to be able to communicate again. Sadly, an eternal existence trapped with no ability to interact with the world had left many disembodied psychologically damaged.
    . . .
    Even if a disembodied person has not succumbed to despair, the reality of the afterlife is still daunting:
    The disembodied cannot be seen and cannot hear, although the dead can see the entire electromagnetic spectrum. They also have a 360-degree field of view. The disembodied cannot smell, touch or taste. They do not sleep.
    The disembodied are so insubstantial they cannot affect the physical world, but their energy can be contained. They can’t walk through walls, open doors or clank chains. They are easily trapped in rooms until someone opens the door. The living are constantly colliding with them. To the living, the collision is unnoticeable; to the disembodied, it is very annoying.
    The disembodied vastly outnumber the living, but still have little economic and political power because of the difficulty in laying claim to their legacy, unless they made provisions before death. Thus many disembodied still work after death, to help provide for family members left behind or to pay for those amusements that help make eternity bearable. After all, reading books and watching movies and television (with subtitles) require the wherewithal to pay Amazon and Netflix.
    The disembodied are unaware of each other and can only communicate via an AfterNet terminal and the Internet. The AfterNet is a multinational, non-profit organization that provides free public terminals and maintains the AfterNet portal, which offers free email to the disembodied.
    The AfterNet also maintains the free terminals that most disembodied use to communicate. These nondescript black boxes can be found in shopping centres, libraries and post offices.
    Using a terminal is not easy; a disembodied person has to form his or her thoughts clearly enough for the terminal to translate those thoughts into text or speech for the living to understand.
    A living person who wishes to speak directly to the disembodied cans simply use the Internet, or use a portable terminal, a device similar in size and appearance to a smart phone. One speaks aloud and the terminal translates the words and projects them into the AfterNet field for the disembodied to read. The thoughts of the disembodied are similarly turned into speech for the living to hear, usually through an earbud.
    A person who can project his or her thoughts directly into an AfterNet field—a difficult task for the living—could find employment as an avatar, representing a disembodied person who had managed to claim their identity and their legacy.

Dramatis personae
Principals
    Jane Austen , disembodied Regency novelist
    Mary Crawford , Jane’s avatar
    Melody Kramer , Jane’s agent: Her life partner is Tamara Johnson
    Albert Ridings , Jane’s friend, who died in the Great War. His wife was Catherine
    Dr Alice Davis , Austen scholar at the University of Chicago.
    Stephen Abrams , Dr. Davis’ graduate student
    Courtney Blake , freelance journalist/writer, author of
The Real Jane Austen
Supporting
    Alan Pembroke , Random House editor
    Ajala Johnsson , JASNA President
    Cindy Wallace , JASNA North Texas Regional Coordinator. Her fellow coordinators are BethAnn and Megan .
    Mrs Westerby , the inheritor of several Austen documents
Fictional
    Many characters from Jane Austen’s novels are mentioned in this book, including:
    Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy , from
Pride and Prejudice
    Fanny Price and Edmund Bertram from
Mansfield Park
(also, of course, Henry and Mary Crawford)
    Emma Woodhouse and George Knightley from
Emma
    Catherine Morland and Henry Tilney from
Northanger Abbey
    Anne Elliot and Frederick Wentworth from
Persuasion
    Elinor and Marianne Dashwood and Edward Ferrars from
Sense and Sensibility

    And from
Sanditon
, Charlotte Heywood and Sidney Parker

VOLUME I



New York City
An offer from her publisher
    A woman writer,