The New Springtime

The New Springtime by Robert Silverberg is the sequel to At Winter's End. It was originally published in 1990 and is 358 pages long. You need to read At Winter's End before The New Springtime. I enjoyed The New Springtime more than At Winter's End. I'd have to honestly say that At Winter's End bogged down in the second half (or toward the last third) of the book. The New Springtime kept the pace up better, although in many ways I thought the two books could have been edited down to one, with a part one and part two. I still prefer hard science fiction, though, so that could influence my feelings. Silverberg is a very good writer and that makes his books enjoyable. I recommend his books if you like science fiction.

From Amazon:

[Second of 2 "New Springtime" novels.] The death-stars had come, and they had kept on coming for hundreds of thousands of years, falling upon the Earth, swept upon it by a vagrant star that had passed through the outer reaches of the solar system. They brought with them a time of unending darkness and cold. It was a thing that happened every twenty-six million years, and there was no turning it aside. But all that was done with now. At last the death-stars had ceased to fall, the sky had cleared of dust and cinders, the sun's warmth again was able to break through the clouds. The glaciers relinquished their hold on the land; the Long Winter ended; the New Springtime began. The world was born anew. Now each year was warmer than the last. The fair seasons of spring and summer, long lost from the world, came again with increasing power. And the People, having survived the dark time in their sealed cocoons, were spreading rapidly across the fertile land. But others were already there. The hjjks, the somber cold-eyed insect-folk, had never retreated, even at the time of greatest chill. The world had fallen to them by default, and they had been its sole masters for seven hundred thousand years. They were not likely to share it gladly now. Locus Poll Award Nominee

Quote:

"What a pathetic imitation of lost greatness we've created here! And we're so proud of what we have done. But in truth we've done so little - only to copy, like the monkeys that we are. What we have copied is the appearance, not the substance. And we could lose it all, such as it is, in the twinkling of an eye."