Tesseract by Spring

Just before the wedding Elizabeth Bennet goes back in time so that she could have spent the last six months already married.

Why you should read this: If you like stories which demonstrate that pre-Hunsford Darcy would not have made a good husband.

Why you might not like it: You like stories (even science fictiony ones) to make sense.  You believe that in essentials Darcy did not change much.

Regency, AU, Complete, G at DWG wayback machine

I must admit that the last time I read science fiction was when I’d had some goofballs and gin and decided that reading Ray Bradbury would be just the thing.  I don’t really remember that story much, but I remember it didn’t make much sense to me.  Reading Tesseract gave me the same feelings of confusion as being on seconal except without all the fun.

First there is a sparkly light that takes Elizabeth back in time so she can convince herself to accept Darcy’s Hunsford proposal and not have to wait another six months to get married.  It seems like it would create a paradox to go and kidnap yourself, but I am not a scientist, merely the wife of a pathetic history professor.  It also doesn’t make sense because she knows how much both she and Darcy have changed since then.  Elizabeth succeeds and then has suddenly been married to mean Darcy for six months without remembering any of it.  Of course he’s a jerk and she doesn’t want to be married to him anymore.  I don’t think it makes for the Elizabeth who asked for the proposal changed rather than the one who accepted to simply pop back into an alternate timeline.  Wouldn’t she disappear?  Finally she finds the magic light again and goes back to convince herself to not convince herself to accept the first proposal.  OK, a good argument for the necessity of Hunsford to Darcy’s character, but then somehow multiple versions of Elizabeth continue to exist, and the one unlucky enough to have been married to pre-Hunsford Darcy ends up in France long-haired, barefoot, pregnant and running around the countryside.  So more paradoxes, and not in a fun way, but in a “I didn’t think the plot through very well” sort of way.  I’m not sure why multiple versions of her continue to exist.  I haven’t time traveled very often myself, but I always thought I couldn’t be in the same place at the same time as my other self, so they’re can’t be all those versions, perhaps some would simply cease to exist, or perhaps each would create her own universe…