[New Springtime 02] • The Queen of Springtime

*From the Five-Time Nebula Award-Winner*  The death stars that brought the apocalyptic destruction on Earth seven hundred thousand years before have stopped falling, and Earth has begun to renew itself. The Long Winter that held the human tribes in their cocoons beneath the ground is over, and the People are spreading rapidly across the newly fertile land. *The Queen of Springtime* continues the chronicles of the People’s reclamation of Earth begun in the first volume, *At Winter’s End*. The human tribes struggle to fulfill their destiny as rulers of Earth, but they find the seats of power already occupied. The hjjks, the somber, cold-eyed insect-folk, never retreated, even at the time of greatest chill. The world fell to them by default, and they have been its sole masters for seven hundred thousand years. *The Queen of Springtime* follows the struggle between these dissimilar beings to establish dominance in the newly emerging world. Exclusive to this Bison Books edition, Robert Silverberg provides an introduction and a synopsis of the unwritten concluding volume of The New Springtime trilogy. Appearing for the first time in print, “The Summer of Homecoming” outline reveals the fates, two hundred years later, of the heroes and their world that were introduced in *At Winter’s End* and *The Queen of Springtime*.