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Finished reading Many Dimensions (1931) yesterday. I've been trying to ration Charles Williams' novels, given that there's only a half-dozen. This one rates pretty high: moustache-twirling villain gets his hands on the Stone of Solomon! Time travel as trap! A mystical artifact whose powers include being infinitely reproduceable! Tetragrammaton! Heroic self-sacrifice! Kinky subtext!
No, really -- it might be because I looked up Williams and came across some stuff about his personal life, but the two main characters, Chief Justice Lord Arglay and his devoted secretary, Chloe Burnett; well, the villain just assumes they're sleeping together, the reader knows they aren't, but I really do think they're in some kind of non-physical but mutually satisfying D/S relationship. This is an important plot point, since in one chapter Lord Arglay is able to draw on the bond between them to free Chloe from Sir Gile's attempted mind-control and on the other hand, Chloe's ability to freely submit to someone/thing she respects and loves* makes her the only person able to wield the Stone properly, because unlike everyone else, she doesn't try to impose her own will upon it.
* She's generally a people-pleaser, but when her Nice Guy(TM) boyfriend Frank tries to nag her into lending him the Stone so he can pass his exams, she refuses.
No, really -- it might be because I looked up Williams and came across some stuff about his personal life, but the two main characters, Chief Justice Lord Arglay and his devoted secretary, Chloe Burnett; well, the villain just assumes they're sleeping together, the reader knows they aren't, but I really do think they're in some kind of non-physical but mutually satisfying D/S relationship. This is an important plot point, since in one chapter Lord Arglay is able to draw on the bond between them to free Chloe from Sir Gile's attempted mind-control and on the other hand, Chloe's ability to freely submit to someone/thing she respects and loves* makes her the only person able to wield the Stone properly, because unlike everyone else, she doesn't try to impose her own will upon it.
* She's generally a people-pleaser, but when her Nice Guy(TM) boyfriend Frank tries to nag her into lending him the Stone so he can pass his exams, she refuses.
