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Cities and Wilderness  by Larner 2 Review(s)
FimbrethilReviewed Chapter: 4 on 8/6/2025
Wow. Spring not happening in the Western lands puts a new perspective on "In Western Lands"

LindeleaReviewed Chapter: 4 on 8/5/2025
My first thought as I began reading was, "Clever hobbits!" I loved Robin's stealth, and the special "knock" that identified himself to his mother, and the improvised "lock" on the door. Wonderful details!

You've put some thought into the details of Lotho's (and his Men's) activities as "Chief". I hadn't thought about such restrictions as "one boiler for laundry" or "one bucket per well", but they make perfect sense, along with stealing the lamps, lamp oil, and candlesticks and even limiting bedsheets indiscriminately. We already knew about the restrictions on firewood, but you've fleshed out the depredations of the ruffians marvellously in this short descriptive passage.

The details about Otho's death and Lotho's drunkenness enrich the background quite effectively.

This story provides a wonderful gapfiller into how twelve Shirriffs swelled into "troops", as well as how Robin ended up in Frogmorton when Sam had known him in Hobbiton. Alas, poor Robin. And you have the same idea as I've had – Shirriffs couldn't quit in Lotho's day, though they could be sacked. (And if Lotho found cause to sack them, they likely faced the Lockholes... or worse.)

Interesting, that it's such a late spring. Bulbs aren't blooming yet... which raises the speculation that, had the Dark Lord won, he might have imposed Narnia-like "always Winter but never Christmas" sort of conditions on Middle-earth, only much darker, of course.

Just in case the reader's too thick (or too groggy, perhaps) to pick up on the details, Robin helpfully supplies the date. Again, the details are so well done! They draw one ever deeper into Robin's skin until the moment the reader knows exactly what is happening/has just happened in a faraway land, many leagues to the south.

Another incredible use of detail is the birds – the absence of other birds besides crows, the crows' rejoicing as if they, too had felt oppressed and were not merely the tools of the oppressor, and then the return of the missing birds on the winds of change and renewal. On a personal note, my heart always lifts to hear the geese honking overhead in springtime. (More so in the past, when I lived along the fly-way and the geese flew south in the autumn and returned in the spring. Here where we've settled, the geese stay year-round, so we may hear the honking of a flock at any time of year, really.) And then the clouds, changing from murky brown to a riot of natural colour and the "honest touch" of "a silver curtain of rain", along with the "sparkling jewels" left behind when the rain ends and the sun comes out. Nicely done.

He’d be like the goldcrests – a lovely thought, even though it will still be half a year before the Travellers return and restore the Shire to the Shire-folk.

The "cheer up" reminds me of my mom, who always said the robins in the trees surrounding our house were greeting the world with their "Cheerio! Cheerio!"

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