Helliconia: "Hellonica Spring", "Helliconia Summer", "Helliconia Winter"

Brian W. Aldiss

Helliconia is a planet that, due to the massively eccentric orbit of its own sun around another star, experiences seasons that lasts eons. Whole civilisations grow in the spring, flourish in the summer & then die in the brutal winters. The inhabitants have been profoundly changed by their experience...