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Stirring Rings by Larner	10 Review(s)
French Pony	Reviewed Chapter: 12 on 10/27/2006
Wow! Plots, counter-plots, biological warfare! Seems to me that Saruman's main problem is that he peaked too soon. I like the Mouth of Sauron opening this, especially since you keep his origins as mysterious as ever. Author Reply: Oh, I love that characterization of Saruman peaking too soon. We know from the appendices and Tale of Years that waves of plagues went through Gondor and Eriador--it's plain Sauron did biological warfare, and ended up having some of it rebounding on his own folk, according to Tolkien. Seemed that these were three possible ways he might have carried it all out. And am so glad you appreciated the Mouth's appearance here. Did give him a Lesser Ring, of course....

Linda Hoyland	Reviewed Chapter: 12 on 10/26/2006
You really brought the evil Saron caused home to me in a way I'd not thought of before. Author Reply: Oh, it's so satisfying to hear that how I've written something has increased thinking about how things were done or what impact actions might have happened. Thank you, Linda.

Kitty	Reviewed Chapter: 12 on 10/22/2006
The bad guys are here ahead of their time, as this is a way of making war more common in our times. But then, Sauron was a Maia, after all. This chapter was rather depressing, you know. To know so many people died, and particularly so many innocent people ... and even more depressing is that the comfort and hygiene Saruman's innovation initially brought were abused to such evil purpose. Author Reply: Yes, evil tends to think of things ahead of time, while good sets guards, but often fails to anticipate what evil will do next. Tolkien indicated the plague spread north and west as well as hitting Gondor hard and rebounding on the Enemy's lands within his sphere of influence, and that throughout all lands there was much death and loss. We'll be looking next at how it hit the lands and peoples of Arnor. I agree--Saruman offers innovations that truly help the settles lands, and they end up being used by the Enemy to cause widespread death and destruction. But, then, the Enemy has always been an opportunist.

mohit	Reviewed Chapter: 12 on 10/22/2006
This is a very good story and is also rather well written...although i think that certain improvements can be made to it so that it appears more like what really hapenned but otherwise the story is really very good....plz. add me to the mailing list if there is any : mohit.thukral@gmail.com Author Reply: Thank you for the compliments. I'm always appreciative of suggestions to improve the writing, but I'll let you know now that hackers have made my email capabilities nill for the last few months. It's been very frustrating. You can use the Reader button at the top of the page to indicate you'd like to be notified when a new chapter is added to a story. And once I finally get my email up and running again--if that day ever comes at this point--I'll definitely put you on the list to notify when a new chapter is added.

shirebound	Reviewed Chapter: 12 on 10/21/2006
Eeee, this is very dark and scary! But so very logical. by acting in hope, good will be brought out of the evil all have seen here. What an encouraging thing to think, and to say. Gandalf must have felt so alone, seeing and sensing things that almost no one else seemed to be aware of. Author Reply: Yes, all too horrible an idea of how the plagues that killed so many throughout Middle Earth might have happened. Gandalf's words, of course, mirror the Biblical comfort that all things will work to the good for those who love the Lord; even the worst of things can, left in divine hands, be turned around and beget far better results than any might have hoped to see. Gandalf knows his mandate and seeks to be the instrument of that good, and opens himself to the guidance that will bring him to it. But I think you are right, and he, as is true of all truly good souls, is all too often isolated among others who haven't the capacity as yet to fully understand or open themselves similarly.

harrowcat	Reviewed Chapter: 12 on 10/21/2006
Ooooops! Hit the post button not the go back toggle! To continue..... I have a morbid fascination for things like plague, biological warfare and the medically gruesome. I have been known to do things like go for a guided tour round the local sewage farm and visit a disused nuclear bunker while on holiday! My friends seem to think that I am a little strange! So Sauron's workshops are right up my street - yuck! Is Saruman really so self-centred that he can't see why people are keeping him at arm's length? I guess he is! Poor horses! But it only slows them up. It is not enough to stop them entirely. Traitors dot not make for honourable companions do they? Imagine! He wants his gold back! Hah! And then the next 'reward' is plague-carrying mossies! Nice! Trust an Orc to do your dirty work? It's a wonder that Sauron was still using them by the time of the quest! I do like the way that you highlight the basic difference between Saruman and Gandalf. The latter works WITH people, gets his hands dirty and lets his heart get involved! Thank goodness that they didn't get to the second water supply. Hmm you have left this chapter with a massive feeling of gloom and doom but I am still looking forward to more. Not a good week at home. Mum went for a routine breast-screening and then got a letter the day after her birthday to go back. They wanted her at 9.15am!!!!! No chance! We got there at 10.30am. Then they wanted to know if she could get herself onto a bed in a small room full of machinery. Honestly! There was barely room for her wheelchair and no room at all for a hoist even though she was sitting on her sling just in case! They eventually managed to do everything in her chair. It turned out to be a benign cyst which they aspirated. So they don't want her back. But the bad news is that due to the carelessness of a locum carer her pressure ulcer has broken down again. I am praying so hard that we are not back to square one. I just think that she wants to be in a nice warm hospital over the Winter months but I hope not! Hope things have settled down with you. BTW Happy Diwali everyone! I live near Southall in London and it sounds like WW III with all the fireworks. Thank goodness I have no pets! Author Reply: My mother was reading us things such as "Guns, Germs, and Steel" when we were still in high school; and I remember watching some historical film about the doctor--don't remember whom for certain--who realized at long last how bubonic plague was spread through fleas carried by diseased rats. Also, as I was born in Costa Rica (LONG story) and before they were sent there my parents were stationed in the Canal Zone in Panama, I read books about the digging of the canal and the problems with yellow fever and malaria, and how some of the first uses of insecticides were made there in Panama to keep workers from becoming so ill they could no longer work. Then I found a fascinating study on how sickle-cell anemia, most commonly seen among blacks, has a positive side--malaria parasites are adversely affected by the red blood cells when they take the sickle shape. Obviously I, too, am interested in similar things; and when I tried to imagine how black clouds out of the East could cause plague within Gondor my mind just kept conjuring up images of mosquitoes. And so the story progressed--you already know how I try to work real-world scenarios into my stories. Had Gandalf realized plans for the city were missing, he'd be out trying to find out who took them and for what purpose and then trying to do damage control, while Saruman just shrugs it off and sends a curse to follow those who took them; and in the end it's the horses that suffer, as you indicated. You know the old saying--"There is no honor between thieves." First Regil tries to get the gold back for his own use, and fails; and they he finds his own reward is to be infected first with malaria and then with a form of bubonic plague--NOT his day, is it? And again it is the Grey Pilgrim who is in there truly helping folks. He turns up when trouble is coming; but then he stays to help fight it out. And where is Saruman? Who knows? Oh, good grief! The testing room for examining a breast mass wasn't large enough to accommodate a patient in a wheelchair??? Where are the priorities in that hospital? One of my best friends had a pretty nasty cancerous mass removed a year and a half ago, and is truly doing very well now, but she was awful sick at the time. I've had a mass removed, but it, like your mother's, was benign, as was true as well for my daughter (adopted). Glad your mother fell into our camp, but sorry to hear of the bedsore. Am not certain what Diwali is, but understand that Guy Fawkes Day can be pretty wild. Certainly our dogs hate when the neighbors decide to use their guns on the local coyotes, who have certainly done numbers on my cats. Night before last I could hear the pack east of me yipping together. I'd never dreamed that my state housed such a big population of coyotes as it does. But now and then deer and elk will graze in the back field, and I love watching them.

harrowcat	Reviewed Chapter: 12 on 10/21/2006
Finally, it is Saturday evening and I have time to do more than just skim read this chapter! I think that the formal 'King James'' tone you have given the Mouth is perfect! Putting such a vivid description of him and including Saruman in the same paragraph really brought chills to my bones. It was really brave/foolish of Glaurags's companion to ask how much gold! It is amazing just how tainted a wonderful word like 'friend' can become from the wrong mouth. Author Reply: I thought, well, Tolkien did it in the book and PJ did it in the films--let's go for it here, too. I felt it helped get across the idea that the Mouth has been very long in his master's service; and to have the old informal address be used to indicate the horrors of this ones regard just seemed right. Glaurag's companion didn't get to enjoy his reward; and as I wrote in The Tenant from Staddle, context can completely change meaning.

SurgicalSteel	Reviewed Chapter: 12 on 10/19/2006
Lovely descriptions of plague. Twisted of me, I know, but fic where the medical details are right just always makes me very happy! It doesn't surprise me in the slightest that Sauron's engaging in biological warfare - it wouldn't surprise me (sadly) if the 'good guys' in Gondor tried the same thing on occasion. Luckily for them Gandalf's having them burn the bodies. Saruman is truly causing destruction on a level he doesn't fully understand. Descriptions of the Mouth were suitably creepy - and he's got one of the lesser rings, hasn't he? A great chapter! Author Reply: First time I heard exerpts from Guns, Germs, and Steel (or it might have been a predecessor of the same ilk) was after its first edition was released back in the sixties, with Mom reading it aloud to my sister and me as we washed the dishes and cleaned the kitchen. Now have one of the latest editions; and I've researched a good deal on how the Nazis used disease to cut down on overpopulation in the camps, often intentionally introducing typhus. When one reads of how black clouds were released over Gondor and brought plague with them I had to think, well, how WAS plague spread? Yellow fever, bubonic plague, malaria, so many other conditions can come from biting insects and tainted water supplies, after all. Even if they didn't realize that the fleas were carrying the disease that brought pustules, still the good physicians of Gondor and the King, many of whom were strong in the knowledge and technology and intelligence come from their Dunedain ancestry, undoubtedly made the connection between the spread of the disease and the presence of filthy conditions. In our own world so many assumed that the Jews were practicing germ warfare of some kind that they mistook for witchcraft when the goyim would become ill while the Jews would avoid the condition; having separate quarters for animals, not using thresh but instead carpets that were regularly cleaned, insisting homes be kept as clean as possible as well as persons, careful storage of foodstuffs--all helped stop the spread of plague in the Jewish quarters while the more filth-tolerant Christians would unwittingly spread the disease. It took SO long for someone to finally peg it down to fleas and the rats that predominantly carried them. I don't know how much influence Sauron might have had over microbes and malaria worms, but he could definitely see the connection between infected lice, mosquitoes, ticks, midges, and fleas with the spread of the diseases each could carry even if he didn't understand the specifics of contamination. Multiply the carriers and give them the chance to all become infected by biting infected hosts, and you have automatic germ warfare. I DO try to inject reality into my stories, as I think you know. And I always suspected the Mouth might have carried one of the lesser rings of Sauron's own manufacture, before he realized he hadn't the ability to see them made so most folk would accept them. And so far Saruman is still unwitting of how his carelessness has managed to cause such havoc.

	Reviewed Chapter: 12 on 10/19/2006
Tedicus Dexius Eclectus reviews: Biological warfare is certainly an efficeint weapon and one I would expect Sauron to use. In fact why didn't he use his magical powers to enhance these organisms to be more virulent? Sending orcs to spike the water doesn't seem very realistic. Surely by now he has learned you don't send an orc to do a vitally important task especially when they would be so conspicuous that close to the city. Gandalf's idea to use the tax code to influence behavior certainly has its modern day counterparts here in the states. Unfortunately, its effectivness and lack of unintended consequenses proves that this is a work of fiction indeed! Imagine if contemporary reactions to these acts of terrorism and use of weapons of mass destruction were instituted in middle earth.... "I'm sorry sir, but we cannot allow any flasks, vials, bottles or any other such container aboard the ferry due to the new decrees from the king's counterterrorism council." "Since these unprovoked attacks of terrorism on our land by beings known to be associated with the Haradrim, I hereby declare the use of military action to liberate the people of Harad and install a peacefull monarchy!" "A fence is the only way we can secure our border against the tide of illegals that could be terrorists from Rhun!" Wow Larner, your stories sure make a guy think. Author Reply: Several of my stories reflect Tolkien's own indications Sauron did use germ warfare. The black clouds that rose in the east and brought plague not only throughout Gondor but also in many cases bounced back to affect Sauron's own pawns and allies were a definite form of germ warfare of some sort. And that he probably used more than one form of such attacks is indicated by the fact that diseases spread north into Eriador and Rhovanion and Eotheod as well as through Gondor and the regions adjacent to Mordor, and all regions experienced drastic losses of population. Had Sauron not infected his own folk along with Gondor he might easily have just sent in his troops in to wipe out the nation in the confusion while so many, and particularly in Gondor's seat of government, were so ill. As for orcs tainting the water supplies on Mount Mindolluin--yes, Men would be less conspicuous, but probably more likely to respond to bites from malarial-infected mosquitoes, and so would be perhaps less effective here. And when so many are so ill, it's easier for such interlopers to pass through unseen, particularly if most of those likely to notice them are suffering chills and fevers that have them huddling in their blanketrolls or possibly delusional. But I do love your scenarios on how our current government would have reacted. Spot on, and not only ludicrous but inefficient and ineffective in the end. We keep trying to secure the door after the horse was stolen and replaced by a large number of very clever rats, after all.

Dreamflower	Reviewed Chapter: 12 on 10/18/2006
Third Age 1636. Such detailed explanations for what are mere hints in the ToY about what happened. I love the way you are able to extrapolate these ideas from canon, and come up with these ideas! And of course, Saruman had his finger in the pie. His pettiness is already beginning to show itself. His curse of lame horses was very clever, but not very grand. At least is it was useful in slowing the villains plans down--though not eliminating them. Still, he was doing it for his own selfish reasons, and not to help those who would be victimized by the knowledge stolen from him. I also like the measures that Gandalf takes: not calling upon any special powers, but staying within his mandate to advise and inspire, he comes up with far more effective solutions to the problems set by the enemy. Author Reply: When horrors strike Gandalf is there fighting them alongside those who face them, while Saruman either hides from them or watches from the margins or ignores them completely. He would have praise for doing what comes easily to him, but doesn't soil his hands. And you are perfectly right about the curse--definitely clever and not grand. The plague that brought down Osgiliath at the end was described as having come in black clouds from the east--and in thinking of that black cloud the image came to me of insects--tons and tons of biting insects, and naturally enough, mosquitoes. But how would it have been treated? Well, if the ship explorers of the north brought potatoes and squashes from the new world, might not those of Gondor have brought back quinine and other such healing herbs? After all Tolkien indicated that the Dunedain ship explorers did circumnavigate the globe in search of the remains of Atalante and a possible approach to Aman, finding the world was indeed now a globe and no longer a disk. And that a form of our historical black plague might have also struck the world and also at Sauron's instigation seemed just too likely. And once more in the habit of showing off his cleverness Saruman has given the Enemy a means to more easily strike out at the center of Numenorean civilization in Ennor.

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