If I could pick the brain of any person on the planet it would be Neal Stephenson, He’s been my favorite for years, I’ve read many of his books several times over and come away from them each time feeling less alone in the world. His novels are erudite, eclectic and esoteric and yet accessible in a way, He makes complex ideas easier to understand and interesting, ss someone who isn’t terribly interested in mathematics or science I still enjoy his digressions into mathematical theory and scientific speculation.
Also he looks like a fucking wizard
He writes characters that are vibrant and real, that are multifaceted and have their own desires and in most of his books there seems to be at least a little kink, sometimes it’s overt as in an entire subculture of sub-aquatic group-sexing “Drummers” in Diamond Age and sometimes it’s just the feel of the dynamic. The Baroque Cycle has a bit of each, and to discuss it I’m going to have to go into a lot of spoilers, so if you’d like to read it leave now (it’s only 2600 pages, I’ll wait.)
If that sounds like a bit much, but this is intriguing I highly recommend either Snow Crash, which is one of his first novels or REAMDE his most recent, as good introductions to his writing style.
The whole point of As close as it gets posts is to point out the best substitutes for Femdom popular culture has to offer. While the rest of the series has nothing to do with femdom, the relationship between two of the primary characters Jack Shaftoe and Eliza has some femdommy aspects, hits some of the same notes that The Princess Bride does. Furthermore, it resonates with me personally because I can see a fair bit of myself in Jack and understand his devotion to Eliza.
Half-Cocked Jack Shaftoe (also known, at various points, as King of the Vagabonds, L’Emmerdeur, Quicksilver, Ali Zaybak, Ect.) is an illiterate uneducated vagabond, slightly mad with untreated syphilis (and yet I’d make the argument that like the each of the protagonists of this series a Genius.)
After the eldest of his two half brothers drowns trying to steal from a dutch trade ship, young Jack and his remaining brother make a brisk trade clinging to the legs of men condemned to hang, thus speeding their exit from this mortal coil and easing their suffering. In a round about manner this leads them to a few years of soldering before they part ways. Bob stays in the kings army, and Jack takes to Vagabonding about Europe, his adventures eventually earning him the title king of the vagabonds and leads him to the siege of Vienna.
Jack first meets Eliza while chasing and ostrich in a saboteurs tunnel beneath Vienna where he stumbles upon two Janissaries executing the harem in which Eliza is an odalisque.
One of those moments had arrived: Jack had been presented with the opportunity to be stupid in some way that was much more interesting than being shrewd would’ve been. These moments seemed to come to Jack every few days. They almost never came to Bob…. Jack had been expecting such a moment to arrive today. He’d supposed, until moments ago, that it had already come: namely, when he decided to mount the horse and ride after the ostrich. But here was a rare opportunity for stupidity even more flagrant and glorious. … Bob was convinced that the Imp of the Perverse rode invisibly on Jack’s shoulder whispering bad ideas into his ear, and that the only counterbalance was Bob himself… But Bob was in England.
An odalisque, for reference.
Jack saves Eliza, who soon proves to be remarkably intelligent, helping Jack to smuggle the ostrich feathers, and several bolts of silk back to where they can sell them. On their journey across Europe she reveals that she had been kidnapped along with her mother from the island of Qwghlm (somewhere in the northern British isles,) sold into slavery, well educated, including in the arts of lovemaking (from certain books of India) and kept a virgin because the grand turk liked to have a couple around for special occasions. She also reveals that the owner of the pirate ship, was a European man who ate rotten fish and sold her and her mother for an albino stallion.
While trying to survive the bohemian winter near some hot springs Eliza with the help of a length of sheep gut gives Jack the first sexual relief he’s gotten since he earned the name “half-cocked” Jack due to a syphilis treatment gone horribly awry. It isn’t an incredibly sexy scene, Jack bent over in the hot springs arguing with Her about going into town and getting a needle and thread, while she prods about finding a certain chakra, she’s read about. The explosive result is however that Jack’s mood is considerably improved and her become quite a bit more endeared towards Eliza as she is the only woman in Christendom that know how to give him relief.
Later he promises rather of the cuff to find a kill the man who sold her into slavery, but she doesn’t really believe him or his claims of undying love (since he tends to treat much of life as a lark.) Eliza, though in someways quite in love with Jack from the get go, is quite committed to both survival and prosperity, Not wanting to become a slave ever again she pursues wealth as a means to gain power. When Jack’s impatience for this sort of work she becomes a little colder towards him, until He under the influence of some hallucinatory mushrooms bursts through a phosphorescent pool in a silver mine screaming at what he thinks are demons that they can take him to hell if only they’ll let her be. (Quite ruining the business transaction she was involved in, but endearing him to her nonetheless.)
“Because, Jack, you volunteered to be taken down into eternal torment in place of her. This is the absolute minimum (unless I’m mistaken) that any female requires from her man.” – Another Character explaining to Jack why Eliza is pleased rather than upset that he just ruined a business deal.
This is how their relationship starts, eventually when they get to Amsterdam and Eliza starts becoming successful in business, Jack who has no head for that sort of thing becomes convinced that she will become bored with him now that she is surrounded by men of quality. This leads him to Paris, where the syphilis kicks in, He loses his mind, and the Turkish stallion he’s there to sell, almost becomes a galley slave, but ends up crashing a costume party where he is mistaken as King Louis (Jack’s adventures up to this point have made their way into a series of picaroon romances, and Le Roy is rumored to be coming as the King of Vagabonds.) It turns out that the party is hosted by the man who abducted Eliza years ago, but Jack doesn’t realize that until he is fleeing on horse back through the halls, having cut off the host’s son’s hand, and he discovers a secret kitchen for preparing rotten fish, which even by Parisian standards stinks something awful.
With the loot from his time in Paris Jack returns to Amsterdam, and ends up ruining everything by inadvertently entering the slave trade (He thought pieces of India meant India cloth, When it really refers to a slave.) which of course Eliza abhors, She begs him to give up this endeavor, but his pride will not let him turn back until he feels worthy of Eliza. Furious she throws a harpoon at him and leaves in tears.
The voyage is a disaster. Jack and his partners are captured by pirates and enslaved themselves, and Jack completely loses his mind to syphilis.
You know I’m trying to be brief here and just summarize the relationship between two of the characters in this series, but So far that is just book two (and book one isn’t about either of them.) So let’s move forward quickly now.
While Jack is a galley slave in the Mediterranean, Eliza moves from finance in Amsterdam to becoming a spy in France, for William of Orange, to actually joining the french nobility, becoming Countess De la Zuer.
Jack, back from the dead and seemingly cured of his madness throws in with a cabal of other slaves to steal some silver that turns out to be gold (the gold of Solomon, which is lusted after by alchemists all over Europe.) In Cairo he meeting with the man responsible for Eliza’s Slavery he cuts off his head and sends this message:
I have let you live, but for one purpose only: so that you can make your way back to Paris and tell them the following: that the deed you are about to witness was done for a woman, whose name I will not say, for she knows who she is; and that it was done by ‘Half-Cocked’ Jack Shaftoe, L’Emmerdeur, the King of the Vagabonds, Ali Zaybak: Quicksilver!”
He goes on to win and lose several fortunes and circle the globe. Eliza meanwhile receives that message immediate before she accepts the proposal of the one hand son of her abductor. She has several children, one out of wedlock, who is kidnapped by a business competitor who wants the gold that Jack and his friends have stolen. She dedicated her time to ruining him and reclaiming her son, while Jack is traversing the globe.
Eventually the two a reunited briefly in the court of King Louis, where she swears he will never see her again as long as he lives. And King louis recruits Jack to debase the English currency holding the safety of his dear Eliza and her children hostage against his good behavior.
In the end, years later, after the war between France and England finally ends, (and Jack survives a hanging due to the machinations of Eliza’s son and his lover the future queen of England) Jack resumes his courtship of Eliza while living out his retirement in the courts of King Louis.
I’m realizing now that this is an almost incomprehensible explanation, but that’s basically how their relationship goes though out this epic and incredibly complex series. The reason I point this out as having a specifically Femdom feel, is because there is a power imbalance between Jack and Eliza, and yet the do love each other.
Eliza is educated, and book smart able to move easily in high society where Jack is distinctly unwelcome. She is literally the only woman that jack knows that can give him sexual release. While Eliza rises in wealth and power Jack is unable to hold onto either for long. Eventually he goes willingly to his hanging because she says that’s what she wants. It just makes me so happy when they are together, and whenever I read it, I just wish Jack would this time do what she tells him from the beginning.
Anyway Despite the fact that I seem to have given away the whole plot, I’ve mentioned only the bare-bones of the story-line for two of the three main characters and there is so much to this story that it has my highest recommendation. Oh, and honorable mention should go to Diamond Age (which is the the spiritual sequel to Snow Crash.) Among other things there is a sequence where a gentleman goes to a Pro-Domme, only to have the scenario changed up in an unexpected manner, also it’s a much shorter read.