The 2018 Arthur C. Clarke Award for science fiction has just been awarded to Anne Charnok’s Dreams Before the Start of Time (47North 2017), a novel set in London in the near future. Infertility is a thing of the past, and artificial wombs eliminate the struggles of pregnancy, and men and women can create children independently. But the novel asks what does it mean to be a parent? A child? A family?

Dr Paul March-Russell, Specialist Associate Lecturer in the Department of Comparative Literature and editor of Foundation: The International Review of Science Fiction was on the panel of judges for the award.

Paul praised the winning title: ‘I’m delighted that this quiet, beautifully written novel has received one of the genre’s highest accolades. It eschews melodrama and sensation for a methodically thought-out narrative which is all the more human and profound.’

Further details of the Arthur C. Clarke Award are available at: www.clarkeaward.com