The Price of Spring
core novel 2009 The Long Price Quartet
Record
| First published | 2009 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novel |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 4.13 (6,562 ratings, collected 2026-09-14) |
| Page count | 352 |
| First-edition ISBN | 9780765313430 |
| Internal chronology | 4 |
Synopsis
Fifteen years after the devastating war that destroyed the poets and their andat, both the Khaiem cities and the Galtic Empire face a shared, slow-moving catastrophe: a mysterious infertility afflicting nearly everyone born in the years since. An aging emperor works to secure a fragile peace through a marriage alliance between his son and a Galtic lord's daughter, even as older wounds remain unhealed on both sides. Meanwhile Maati, a guilt-ridden poet living in hiding after his role in the earlier war, begins secretly training a group of women, forbidden from the old andat tradition, to attempt what no poet has managed since the catastrophe: creating a new andat that might undo the damage. As his student Vanjit pushes toward that goal, Maati and the emperor's daughter Eiah find themselves racing to keep the fragile peace from unraveling entirely.
Where it sits
- Universe: The Long Price Quartet
- Series: The Long Price Quartet core; position 4 of 4 in the series' recorded order
- Author: Daniel Abraham
Awards (verified)
- Locus Award (Best Fantasy Novel (reader poll)), 2010: finalist; Locus reader poll placement: 11th place.
Notes
- From the series record (The Long Price Quartet): Core Canon = all 4 novels of the completed quartet (Tor Books, 2006-2009). No companion/Expanded Canon material found. Later 2-in-1 omnibus editions (Shadow and Betrayal; Seasons of War) repackage the same 4 texts, not new works, per this project's standing edition-vs-work distinction.
Neighbouring works
Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings, but they resolve to the exact same sequence for this book, so one combined line is shown instead of two identical ones.
- Reading order, within the series The Long Price Quartet: position 4 of 4: previous An Autumn War (2008)
Sources
- FictionDB: The Long Price Quartet
- Tor Publishing Group: A Shadow in Summer
- https://www.bookbrowse.com/bb_briefs/detail/index.cfm/ezine_preview_number/4016/the-price-of-spring
- sfadb: Daniel Abraham
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