Dreams Before the Start of Time

By Anne Charnock

2017

First Published

3.29

Average Rating

219

Number of Pages

6H41M

Audio Length

Winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award. In a near-future London, Millie Dack places her hand on her belly to feel her baby kick, resolute in her decision to be a single parent. Across town, her closest friend—a hungover Toni Munroe—steps into the shower and places her hand on a medic console. The diagnosis is devastating. In this stunning, bittersweet family saga, Millie and Toni experience the aftershocks of human progress as their children and grandchildren embrace new ways of making babies. When infertility is a thing of the past, a man can create a child without a woman, a woman can create a child without a man, and artificial wombs eliminate the struggles of pregnancy. But what does it mean to be a parent? A child? A family? Through a series of interconnected vignettes that spans five generations and three continents, this emotionally taut story explores the anxieties that arise when the science of fertility claims to deliver all the answers.

Avg Rating

3.29

Number of Ratings

802

5 STARS

12%

4 STARS

31%

3 STARS

36%

2 STARS

15%

1 STARS

goodreads

Author

Anne Charnock

Author · 7 books

Anne Charnock's novel DREAMS BEFORE THE START OF TIME is the winner of the 2018 Arthur C. Clarke Award, and was shortlisted for the BSFA 2017 Best Novel Award. Her latest novel, BRIDGE 108, is written in the same world as her debut novel, A CALCULATED LIFE—a finalist for the 2013 Philip K. Dick and The Kitschies Golden Tentacle Awards. SLEEPING EMBERS OF AN ORDINARY MIND, her second novel, was named by The Guardian as one of the Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Books of 2015 Anne Charnock's journalism has appeared in New Scientist, The Guardian, Financial Times, International Herald Tribune and Geographical. She was educated at the University of East Anglia, where she studied Environmental Sciences, and at The Manchester School of Art, England where she gained a Masters in Fine Art. As a foreign correspondent, she travelled widely in Africa, the Middle East and India and spent a year overlanding through Egypt, Sudan and Kenya. http://www.annecharnock.com http://www.twitter.com/annecharnock Author photo by Marzena Pogorzaly