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    Sleeping Embers of an Ordinary Mind
    Sleeping Embers of an Ordinary Mind
    Sleeping Embers of an Ordinary Mind
    Audiobook7 hours

    Sleeping Embers of an Ordinary Mind

    Written by Anne Charnock

    Narrated by Heather Wilds

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Named by the Guardian as one of the Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Books of 2015

    History is story telling. But some stories remain untold.

    In fifteenth-century Italy, Paolo Uccello recognizes the artistic talent of his young daughter, Antonia, and teaches her how to create a masterpiece. The girl composes a painting of her mother and inadvertently sparks an enduring mystery.

    In the present day, a copyist painter receives a commission from a wealthy Chinese businessman to duplicate a Paolo Uccello painting. Together, the painter and his teenage daughter visit China, and in doing so they begin their escape from a tragic family past.

    In the twenty-second century, a painting is discovered that’s rumored to be the work of Paolo Uccello’s daughter. This reawakens an art historian’s dream of elevating Antonia Uccello, an artist ignored by history because of her gender.

    Stories untold. Secrets uncovered. But maybe some mysteries should remain shrouded.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateDec 1, 2015
    ISBN9781511320849
    Sleeping Embers of an Ordinary Mind
    Author

    Anne Charnock

    Anne Charnock is the author of Dreams Before the Start of Time, winner of the 2018 Arthur C. Clarke Award. Her debut novel, A Calculated Life, was a finalist for the 2013 Philip K. Dick Award and the 2013 Kitschies Golden Tentacle award. The Guardian featured Sleeping Embers of an Ordinary Mind in “Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Books of 2015.” Anne’s novella, The Enclave, won the 2017 British Science Fiction Association Award for Short Fiction. Her writing career began in journalism, and her articles appeared in the Guardian, New Scientist, International Herald Tribune, and Geographical. Learn more at www.annecharnock.com.

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    Reviews for Sleeping Embers of an Ordinary Mind

    3.5/5

    19 ratings3 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Beautifully written and haunting in the sense that it leaves you with things to think about, this unusual novel by Anne Charnock completely captured me. Blending science fiction, art, and history, its three interwoven storylines span time, with one in the past, one in the present, and one in the future, but all revolve around the fifteenth century painter Paolo Uccello and his artistically talented daughter Antonia. A lot of research went into the book and I actually learned a lot about painting composition, art history and the possibilities of future technology. I alternated between reading a review copy of this book supplied to me at no cost by the author, and a Kindle copy that I purchased myself. Review opinions are mine.
    • 3/5
      When someone names half a dozen writers, and includes both myself and another couple of writers whose fiction I like, then it stands to reason I’ll probably like the others I’d not previously read. So I bought a couple of Aliya Whiteley novellas, and read them and thought them very good (although one more so than the other – see here). And now to Anne Charnock… and I have to admit I’d not otherwise have given the book a second look given that title – and yes, I know my own stuff has long and none-too-informative titles. But I’d have missed out. Sleeping Embers of an Ordinary Mind comprises three stories, set in 2013, 2113 and 1469. The links between the three are tenuous (yes, it does remind me a bit of my own writing). In 2113, Toniah has returned to London, is living with her parthogenetic sister (they’re third-generation partho) and has taken up a position as an art history researcher at the Academy of Restitution, which seeks to promote women in history whose contributions were unfairly forgotten, and likewise reassess those of men whose reputation is undeserved (a lovely idea, we should have one of these now). Toniah begins researching the career of… Antonia Uccello, the daughter of Paolo Uccello, a fifteenth-century Italian known for having introduced perspective into Italian Renaissance painting. Although there are a small handful of women painters, it is a male career. Those women were only permitted to paint because they are nuns – and so Antonia, who is talented, must join a convent. By the twenty-second century only her name survives, and only a single painting found in a provincial museum’s archive. The third story follows Toni, a thirteen-year-old Brit, whose father is a professional copyist and whose mother died in a freak accident before the story opens. After a visit to meet a client in China, Toni is inspired to ask her friends and online acquaintances to contribute to her history homework, and so she learns of a great-uncle who died in the Great War before he could marry his betrothed. So Toni and her father go on holiday to France to visit his grave. There’s no neat resolution to the three narratives, to the novel in fact. It tells its stories and lets the reader draw their own conclusions. In some respects, it reminds me of Katie Ward’s excellent Girl Reading (and still no follow-up novel from her, which I would really love to see). I think Ward’s prose style is more to my taste than Charnock’s, which is not to say the latter is bad: it’s unadorned and straightforward, with an enviable clarity. Whoever called out Charnock has done me a favour, and I’ve already put her other two novels (one due in January next year) on my wishlist.
    • 3/5
      Quite interesting until book just ended. I was looking forward to seeing how the three different stories would be connected, since there were obviously many connections between the three stories. No such connections were made.