This book is s series of interconnected short stories in chronological order (mostly?). It follows a small group of people living on Vancouver Island through the throes of climate change.

This book was depressing for me, which is one reason I didn't rate it higher. The other reason is that the author focused a lot on the collapse of connection to the larger world and to the dissolution and abandonment of everything, and I'm just not sure that's how it will go.

For example, the first story is about two faculty at a university taking books out of the library and distributing them to people they know because the library is falling into disrepair and no one will fix it, and weather is creeping in to damage the books. Would a university library really just be abandoned.

Next story is a guy in a neighborhood who is rewilding his lawn and whose neighbor still meticulously mows, sprays weedkiller, and has no interest in the natural flora of their home. But the lawn guy dies, his home is abandoned, and it seems the rest of the neighborhood just kind of leaves too except for the rewilding guy. I still have a hard time with the idea that people will abandon perfectly good homes to go... elsewhere without taking their valuables, selling the property to some entity, just all gone. Another apocalyptic book I've read also posited this, and I have a hard time with the idea of abandoning shelter for nothing in return when that shelter hasn't been destroyed.

Then we have people creeping back into these abandoned neighborhoods to scavenge, linoleum, wire, copper pipes, all the valuable stuff that's taken now when a home is destroyed. We have no central authority whatsover, just a women growing weed and vegetables to feed herself and her loved ones who becomes the wise woman of the... village, town, who knows?

I guess that my POV is throughout all of humanity's development, we have tended to organize ourselves, to have some sort of system of compensation and community and way to spread learning, and this has increased rather than decreased almost without fail. It was nice to see the stories developing toward a new way of doing things that might be more sustainable and just. I just don't know if everything has to (or makes sense to) fall into utter ruin first. War is different, obviously, but even in war a lot of the fight is over who is going to be in charge- it's rare that there is absolutely no one to look to, even a bad choice.

A climate change novella set on Vancouver island. Beginning in the near future, the book is interconnected short stories in different generations and finishes around 2100. As an isolated community survival revolves around learning, adaptation and scavenging but there’s time for music and poetry. So unusual for a catastrophe novel(maybe just the ones I tend to read) it retains hope and humanity. An interesting and thought provoking read.

I always feel awful writing negative reviews or saying I don’t enjoy a book but I truly didn’t enjoy this one at all. I felt it dragged and it isn’t a long book. It took me about 2 weeks to finish this because I kept putting it down

Short stories are good, you know whats better? Interconnected Stories!! This book should receive more hype and attention. Such a beautifully woven story, I couldn’t stop myself from reading it in a day. I rarely do that. Kudos Rebecca, you did good!!

Thank you author & publisher for the e-arc.

A solid collection of stories that create a novella. This book is rather short, but it has a good variety, with good writing. Recommended.

I really appreciate the free ARC for review.

Arboreality will probably become a must-read book in the genre of cli-fi. A series of stories interlinked by place and people and plants, it's an imagining of a world vastly altered by rising seas, rising temperatures, and changing species. It probably deserves that role, as a must-read, but it's also very sentimental, at times maudlin. It's not always easy to identify with the characters, some of who are intensely self-pitying and others who don't feel particularly real. The central story, about a man crafting a violin, focuses on the kinds of behaviors the future might bring: he poaches wood from protected forests, fells a rare sitka spruce, and buys black-market wood from Africa in order to make his ultimate instrument. He justifies all of it: making art requires sacrifice. But ultimately, the stories suggest that it wasn't worth it, that while some small communities might survive and even thrive in some ways, the end is nigh, for individuals and for everything but the plants and animals that will outlive humankind.

I read Arboreality by Rebecca Campbell in a hammock under the canopy of old cedar and pine trees -  it felt like the perfect place to be. In the trees, relating to trees. The authour describes herself as someone who "writes weird fiction" and that was a major selling point for me. I haven't read any of her other work, but I will now. 

Arboreality is a novella, composed of several stories that could stand alone, but together become what feels like a massive saga in relatively few pages. It's an expansion of the Theodore Sturgeon Award-winning short-story, "An Important Failure."

We start out in a world that’s struggling with the impacts of climate change, but it still feels somewhat banal, in that slow descent into quasi-apocalypse I can imagine our (real) society falling into. People are still working or doing mundane things like maintaining a lawn, there is government support, hospitals exist, the world still connects, but it's clear things are not great - a library is flooding, there are concerns about water, and infrastructure is crumbling. The book progresses from there - things get worse, but they also get better.
In the beginning we meet Bernard, a former professor turned book rescuer, turned planter of native trees and other plants. We meet violin makers and musicians, we meet homesteaders, we meet community organizers, and we meet them through time, and their points of intersection and interdependence.

The story is primarily set on southern Vancouver island, in the Cowichan Valley, and only hints at what’s going on elsewhere in the world - sometimes pulling way back (like on a space station) but otherwise, very localized. It hit many of my sweet spots in terms of speculative fiction - I love the well woven, interconnected stories, with environmental themes, climate fiction/potential future, and ultimately, a few different views of human resilience - in this case, implications of larger technological advancements that work towards less dire global circumstances (The Canadians), but primarily community based resiliency, on a local level, through low-tech interventions and actions. 

Arboreality tells of a possible future, with inventive and creative possibilities. I'm not sure if it's a book for everyone, but I can see it being a book I reread in the future, for inspiration and hope. Despite the dire circumstances explored in Arboreality, it's still a beautifully optimistic read.

I also wanted to acknowledge how thoughtful and beautiful this cover by Rachel Yu Lobbenberg is, especially within the context of the book. I did judge this book by it's cover, and I'm glad I did.

Points of hope flickering in a bleak world — that's my initial impression after reading Arboreality. This set of interconnected stories follows several characters as they navigate a world ravaged by climate change. I was initially drawn to this book simply by the cover and was rewarded with small vignettes highlighting what life could look like on Vancouver Island as fires, floods, and pandemics lead to a different world. I enjoyed following characters as they grappled with the "before" and the "after." Overall, this book is more about the characters themselves than it is a bland treatise on the effects of climate change. Rebecca Campbell writes a very poignant novella that is timely for today's world.

Masterfully weaving together this series of interconnected stories, Rebecca Campbell creates a world where shining glimmers of compassion and hope lay waiting to be discovered within the all-too-close-to-home reality of apocalyptic climate change and ecological disaster. From saving library books for future generations and building living infrastructure to a quest to build a violin from found materials, Aboreality is a must read for fans of both dystopian and utopian speculative climate fiction.

5 stars, Metaphorosis Reviews

Summary
An interwoven collection of stories about a Canadian community surviving climate change in tune with nature.
Review
Every now and then, you take a chance, and it pays off in spades. I think the cover of Rebecca Campbell’s Arboreality caught my eye on NetGalley, but I’m not sure what it was about the description that drew me in. I have some faith in Stelliform Press, which didn’t hurt. In any case, I downloaded the book, and now, some weeks later, have read it. It’s an eye opener.
The book starts slowly, with a number of moments that pull back from the story, and drew me away from the characters. The first story, strongly climate-change oriented, is nonetheless beautifully written. When the second story addressed some of the same issues, in the same locations, I got a bit worried, thinking, Oh no, it’s going to be a big slab of message fiction, (having forgotten the book was from Stelliform, and that climate fiction is what they do). But at the third story, I finally caught on that this was a series of interconnected stories (which is clearly stated in the description, but by the time I came to read it, I’d forgotten). And, despite the setting and recurring theme, they’re if not always upbeat, at least uplifting.
In truth, the book works more as a novel of strong chapters than a collection of stories. The same characters turn up, the locations are connected, the world is the same, and the overall book tells (or at least begins) the story of an entire community. The magic in it is that Campbell’s touch is so deft and sure that almost every chapter/story stands on its own, yet taken together, they add up to much more.
It’s been a long time since I’ve come prose this good. There are minor stumbles here and there – some jarring changes in perspective as Campbell pulls way back – but by the end, I was more than willing to let them slide for the sheer beauty of the language and the characterization. Instead, I’m both disappointed by not having had time to read short SFF (outside Metaphorosis) and thus found Campbell earlier, and eager to read all the other work she’s written.
With all that said, this is a book that asks for patience and contemplation – it’s a book to savor, not to rush through, and one that I think will repay re-reading to get the most of the web of relationships. If you’re a fan of rich prose and warm characters, you’ll love this.
I suppose it doesn’t hurt that I live in Tillamook County, Oregon – specifically called out in the book. Not for a reason I support, but it’s always interesting to see your own neck of the woods referred to.
I can’t say I’m sold on the title, though. A tree known as golden arbutus forms much of the connecting tissue of the stories (in more ways than one), and the scene dividers are little arbutus leaves. I’d have expected that to be in the title, and it felt like it was meant to be. ‘Arboreality’ is clever, but to me, suggests an entirely different story than these turned out to be. Regardless, they’re beautifully written, and well worth your time.
I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review.

This book, like the short story it started out as, hurt my heart but also made me hopeful.

We tend to go about our lives not thinking too much about climate change, because if we did we'd be sad all the time. But it's still good to think about it sometimes, to let ourselves feel the pain of it. And to remember that, as bad as it is, as many people are going to die from it . . . there is an after. Probably there will be humans around after, trying to create a better world from the ashes of the old one.

The book focuses on a small area near Vancouver, British Columbia, near where I grew up. This makes it especially poignant, because of course this area will change--has already started to, with clams cooking on the beach last summer and wildfire smoke hazing the air more and more often. The book examines the lives, over several generations, of people weathering climate change. There are things they mourn, like the dense wood that made the best violins--which, I am sorry to tell you, already does not grow anymore. And yet, there are also things they discover and celebrate: trees they plant, buildings they begin, violins they make. We can see surviving climate change and coming out the other side will be a generations-long project, like the growing of the wood for a good violin.

I'm giving it four stars because I don't think the novella adds that much that wasn't in the short story. There are more characters and more that's going on, but the heart of it that was the original short story is still the best part. I also had a little trouble keeping track of all the characters and how much time elapsed between chapters. Nobody is ever really introduced; they simply show up and we're supposed to eventually catch on that they're the child or grandchild of somebody, or an orphan, or something.

Still, this book was an emotional journey that I feel I needed to take. We are in an era where we have to come to some acceptance of what is happening, because it is too late to preserve our old way of life. We have to stop it from getting worse, and we need to take thought for how we're going to survive while it's happening. And most of all, we need the hope that we will, somehow, come out the other side. If not us, the trees that will make some future century's violins.

I had some trouble getting into this book but ultimately enjoyed the short stories. Though the circumstances were bleak and apocalyptic, the settings and characters felt very real. I would recommend this for those interested in reading about climate change anyone who enjoys short stories more broadly.

This is an essential read and a small one too, which can be a great way to provide a new, futuristic perspective to the occasional reader. The short stories in Rebecca Campbell's book are all connected to the nefarious consequences of climate change in the US from the 2040s onwards. They are interesting and focused on moments like small acts of kindness, survival, and anxiety for the future. This is the perfect book for any Botanics lover, as environmental alterations constitute a big part of the narratives. However, it fell a bit short of my cup of tea. There were some parts I would love to see further explored, such as the relationships and generations, as well as what happened to other parts of the globe. And there were a lot of descriptions that made this reading take longer than a 95-page ought to take. As I do not wish to discourage anyone from reading and enjoying it, I add a little disclaimer: this opinion has a lot to do with my personal issues regarding apocalyptic literature in general. In terms of writing, no complaints, it is clear but quite lyrical, and the violin's story is just the right touch of nostalgia.

I’ve never read the short story that inspired this novelization, so this review has no frame of comparison. Instead, I approached this as an original read and, as such, found it quite good.
I’ve read a book by this press before – a Canadian outfit determined to save the planet one book at a time…which is to say they specialize in climate themed speculative fiction.
The perfectly titled arboreality is about a reality where arboreal and other lifeforms are dying out and the world is resignedly reshaping itself to its new normal.
It’s a tale interwoven of many narratives, many characters, multi-generational. Set in the West Coast of Canada, but geography doesn’t matter all that much because the global extinction this tale tells is…well, global.
People messed with nature. Didn’t care, didn’t think. Maybe elected Supreme Court officials who restricted Environmental Protection Agencies from doing their job. That sort of thing.
The tale is bleak, appropriately enough, but engaging and very lyrical in its narrative style. Almost elegiac. Read quickly. Thanks Netgalley.

This was a really interesting take on the scifi genre, I enjoyed that the climate change element in the book. The characters were great and they felt like they were real people. I enjoyed the idea of using trees to grow and make everyday objects. Really enjoyed reading this.

“— It’s a bench. Someone grew a bench.” He traced the living joinery with his hand, seeing where someone had bent the trunks of infant arbutus around one another, had trained the branches upward and over some now-lost frame to form the back of a seat. He laughed at the ingenuity and beauty and ridiculousness. “Come on,” he said. “Sit down.”