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    The Price of Spring: Book Four of The Long Price Quartet
    The Price of Spring: Book Four of The Long Price Quartet
    The Price of Spring: Book Four of The Long Price Quartet
    Ebook506 pages8 hours

    The Price of Spring: Book Four of The Long Price Quartet

    By Daniel Abraham

    4.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Fifteen years have passed since the devastating war between the Galt Empire and the cities of the Khaiem in which the Khaiem's poets and their magical power known as "andat" were destroyed, leaving the women of the Khaiem and the men of Galt infertile.

    The emperor of the Khaiem tries to form a marriage alliance between his son and the daughter of a Galtic lord, hoping the Khaiem men and Galtic women will produce a new generation to help create a peaceful future.

    But Maati, a poet who has been in hiding for years, driven by guilt over his part in the disastrous end of the war, defies tradition and begins training female poets. With Eiah, the emperor's daughter, helping him, he intends to create andat, to restore the world as it was before the war.

    Vanjit, a woman haunted by her family's death in the war, creates a new andat. But hope turns to ashes as her creation unleashes a power that cripples all she touches.

    As the prospect of peace dims under the lash of Vanjit's creation, Maati and Eiah try to end her reign of terror. But time is running out for both the Galts and the Khaiem.


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    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateJul 21, 2009
    ISBN9781429960120
    The Price of Spring: Book Four of The Long Price Quartet
    Author

    Daniel Abraham

    Daniel Abraham is best known as the co-author and executive producer of the Hugo Award–winning series The Expanse under the pseudonym James S. A. Corey. He has also written novels under his own name and as M. L. N. Hanover.  

    Read more from Daniel Abraham

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    Reviews for The Price of Spring

    4.5/5

    17 ratings12 reviews

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    • 4/5
      This was a really brilliant conclusion to the series, I thought. Lots of ends were tied up, and the result was both realistic and (a bit) hopeful.Based on this, I really recommend the series.
    • 5/5
      This was a great series, and this book ended it really well, I finally understand why the series was named "long price". I was surprised several times-- he doesn't follow traditional plot paths but it all hangs together very well. Gave me a lot to think about: the complexities of decisions and actions, aging well, the true meaning of words like "continuity", family relationships.
      "We say that the flowers return every spring...but that is a lie. It is true that the world is renewed. It is also true that that renewal comes at a price, for even if the flower grows from an ancient vine, the flowers of spring are themselves new to the world, untried and untested. The flower that wilted last year is gone. Petals once fallen are fallen forever. Flowers do not return in the spring, rather they are replaced. It is in this difference between returned and replaced that the price of renewal is paid. And as it is for spring flowers, so it is for us."
    • 3/5
      The final installment in this series finally addresses the question of whether the god-like andat should be captured and used for the benefit of society. However, the andat are clearly painted as WMD's with volition, so it's pretty clear who the reader will be rooting for. The conflict between former friends Otah and Maati had potential, but turned out to be lackluster because Maati is now petty and short-sighted. However, the conflict between Otah and his daughter Eiah (who has sided with Maati) is very interesting, particularly as they clearly love one another, and Eiah's claim that, in his attempt to fix society, Otah has essentially discarded a segment of the population, is true. As the story progresses though, an easy solution that makes everyone happy presents itself, leaving the difficult questions unaddressed. So, the author did a good job of wrapping up the story, but it just seemed a little too easy to me.
    • 4/5
      This series wraps up with one of the items that has nagged me the entire time. How the actual use of the powers that Abraham created would be and could be used offensively. How from nearly the start that I understood this magic system, I saw that they would be used, and until this fourth book, they had not been. With tethered creatures of immense power comes actual power, not just implied force and now we see Abraham being to its conclusion the use, abuse and resolution that such force would entail. That is masterfully done, though alone the way to getting there we are taken down some paths that slow us to this resolution. That we find those (like with Modesitt) who have a technological society since magic is denied them in opposition to those with magic trying to create some balance of power in a world where magic has given too much power we muddle through what their perceptions about power will lead to. We might see a parallel in our own world where we have now and have had before, societies so far ahead of others that those others feel the need to level the playing field. And we who have power do not recognize strongly enough the fear of others, the envy of others, the lust of others, that we become far too complacent in dealing with others.In once sense, the Long Price Quartet should have further looked to those themes, expanded on them, and been written from the beginning, all at once, much longer than it is, divided into themes of the seasons. There is a great deal to discuss about the divide between great power and those with lessor power, that still remains to be discussed.But the series does come to an end, put together well with enough inner conflicts between those who have led the way in this series to show more than just your regular Fantasy genre depth. This series is most definitely worth your time and effort and a reread with al four books tackled in sequence one after another.
    • 5/5
      The final volume in Abraham’s Long Price Quartet, jumping ahead in time again. Otah Machi, now Emperor, makes a desperate pact with the Galts: due to missteps with the andat many years ago, only their women are fertile and only the men of the Khaiem are, so they’ll trade. Because nothing goes right with a plan in this series, the young woman to whom he’s agreed to marry his son sticks a spanner in the works. Meanwhile, Otah’s daughter Eiah has conceived her own desperate scheme to return the power of the andat to the Khaiem; this also goes wrong in unexpected ways. Really awful things happen due to the competing plans of various actors, each of which is understandable and often well-intentioned in itself. The ending does feature rebirth, but the volume is well named.
    • 5/5
      The last of the Long Price Quartet. Another 15 years have passed. Galt and the cities of the khaiem have lost a generation of children. Their enemies are pressing against them as they inexorably age. Otah, now emperor, has gone to Galt to persuade them to trade fertile women for fertile men. But others are not willing to abandon the wounded and are working to bring back the andat. Can what was broken be healed? Can the world be renewed? Or will there be further damage?
    • 4/5
      In this fourth and final volume of The Long Price Quartet, the furor of the war between Galt and the cities of the Khaiem is long over and both sides are struggling to find a future after the unimaginable tragedy that ended it. Otah, Maati and the other major players are becoming old and the pace of the story adjusts to reflect this. Instead of a struggle of armies, the struggles are those of politics and visions for the future—strive to recapture the glories of the past or set aside old animosities and look to the future? This is not to imply that there is anything dull about this tale; if anything, the characters continue to get deeper and draw the reader more firmly into their world. It is simply more reflective in nature.And the story ends. As I mentioned in my review of An Autumn War, I'm very happy that Abraham was able to define a complete story arc. I was left with a sense of completion...that I was told a story with a beginning, middle and end...that I don't get from the current trend in fantasy series of wandering ever-onward on some endless path.Fantasy books aren't for everyone (though the fantasy aspects of this series are rather light) but, if you do enjoy the genre, I'm hard-put to think of another completed series by a current author that I found so satisfying.
    • 5/5
      An excellent conclusion to a truly impressive series.
      You could probably read this on its own, but the experience would be much richer for having read the ones that come before – I recommend reading the whole series (4 books, each set 15 years apart.)
      [A bitchy aside here – not enough of these were printed. I ended up having to get this one through interlibrary loan… why do publishers always do this!? (I know why, that is a rhetorical question. It’s just annoying.)]
      As the book opens, the cities of the Khaiem and their rivals/enemies of the Kingdom of Galt have been thrown into a disastrous situation due to the actions of the andat (a kind of magical golem) at the conclusion of the previous book (An Autumn War). Fifteen years have passed, but the kingdoms, instead of working together (a solution which would ensure survival), have both weltered in bitterness and failure.

      Now, both the Khai and his old friend/enemy/rival Maati each have a plan to save the lands of the Khaiem. However, the plans are completely mutually incompatible. Each works hard and desperately to convince others to make the compromises and sacrifices necessary for a scheme to work. Each is convinced of the rightness of his actions. But the reader sees that disaster seems inevitable.

      At first, I had doubts about the book, because one of the main characters is operating on the premise that conclusions on a topic, if researched and created by women rather than men, will be utterly different, because men and women think so differently. I don’t agree. But Abraham deals with this deftly, and although gender politics are a large part of the book, his characters are all fully-realized individuals. Abraham is truly excellent at creating complex characters and multivalent relationships between them – one of my favorite things about this series is that it presents characters from different angles – it shows believably how people change, how one person can be seen differently by different people, at different times. The reader can’t trust that someone who seems to be a villain at one time will remain a villain.

      In a vivid and unique setting, Abraham concludes a story which is difficult at times, thoughtful, and deeply satisfying.
    • 4/5
      The final volume of the Long Price Quartet enlarges on the themes of the preceding three novels and melds them together with intriguing character studies of the central figures. Maati and Otah, each in their own way, attempt to correct the horrific damage they caused in An Autumn War. However, their methods contradict each other and result in even more destruction before a solution is reached. Epic in its scope, The Price of Spring is a satisfying conclusion to the Long Price Quartet.
    • 5/5
      I really liked this book. An excellent wrap up to an excellent series.
    • 4/5
      The Price of Spring is the fourth and final book of Daniel Abraham's Long Price Quartet. The series title is quite apt. There is both a high price to pay and yet even more time has passed between books. Fifteen years to be precise. Otah Machi now rules the Khaiem as Emperor and he has decided to ally with his country's rival nation and mortal enemy in order to save both countries. To say that Otah's decision for his country is unpopular is putting it mildly.I found this book to be a fitting end to the series. The theme of the cycle of life, the passing of the torch from one generation to the next, and how the passage of time changes people (or not in some cases) is strongly felt. It's an impressive feat to have pulled off and it makes for a series that is likely more appreciated by older audience than perhaps a younger one. I'm happy to say I finally found a characters I could get behind in Eieh and, eventually, Danat and Ana. Poor, poor Maati. He has to be one of the most tragic and misguided characters I've read about in a long time. I both feel bad for him and disgusted by him. Vanjit was another interesting and different villain. I was mostly able to predict where she was headed given her situation, though I was still surprised just how far she went in the end.As much as I enjoyed the book there were several things that also bothered me. Otah's grand plan to unite with the Galt's for example. There are many more nations based on the map of the world. Why did he have to pick the people that ruined and almost conquered his country? Why not one of the otheres, one that might have been easier for the people of the Khaiem to accept? Also, the Khaiem are such oddballs. It's like the worst case of nationalized xenophobia ever! They'd rather die than see their children marry and procreate with anyone outside of their society. That whole solution never quite made sense to me other than Otah assuaging his guilt by forcing his country into a situation they hated. I also found the final resolution to be anticlimactic. I'm glad it worked out the way it did - it was just over too fast, basically wrapping up in a page and a half.While I don't think I'll ever reread this series, I'm glad to have read it. I truly enjoy Abraham's writing and had an interesting time visiting the world of the andat. I think I'll be picking up the author's Expanse series sometime in the future.
    • 3/5
      The final book of the Long Price Quartet, or why not to put the power of gods at the disposal of mortals. Some characters make decisions that are less than disastrous, but those are often the least believable of the choices made. By the time I got around to reading this I'd lost the immediacy of my connection to the storytelling in the first three books, so perhaps that's why I kept jumping out of the context - or maybe the story was more annoying and less rewarding than the earlier volumes.

    Book preview

    The Price of Spring - Daniel Abraham

    1

    It was the fifth month of the Emperor’s self-imposed exile. The day had been filled, as always, with meetings and conversations and appreciations of artistic tableaux. Otah had retired early, claiming a headache rather than face another banquet of heavy, overspiced Galtic food.

    The night birds in the garden below his window sang unfamiliar songs. The perfume of the wide, pale flowers was equal parts sweetness and pepper. The rooms of his suite were hung with heavy Galtic tapestries, knotwork soldiers slaughtering one another in memory of some battle of which Otah had never heard.

    It was, coincidentally, the sixty-third anniversary of his birth. He hadn’t chosen to make it known; the High Council might have staged some further celebration, and he had had a bellyful of celebrations. In that day, he had been called upon to admire a gold- and jewel-encrusted clockwork whose religious significance was obscure to him; he had moved in slow procession down the narrow streets and through the grand halls with their awkward, blocky architecture and their strange, smoky incense; he had spoken to two members of the High Council to no observable effect. At this moment, he could be sitting with them again, making the same points, suffering the same deflections. Instead, he watched the thin clouds pass across the crescent moon.

    He had become accustomed to feeling alone. It was true that with a word or a gesture he could summon his counselors or singing slaves, scholars or priests. Another night, he might have, if only in hope that this time it would be different; that the company would do something more than remind him how little comfort it provided. Instead, he went to the ornate writing desk and took what solace he

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