Arboreality

NOMINATED FOR THE 2023 URSULA K. LE GUIN PRIZE FOR FICTION

Stelliform Press is probably one of my favorite small presses of the moment, focusing on cli-fi and often highlighting hope in even the darkest moments. Arboreality feels like a bit of an atypical release in their recent publication history; it feels decidedly darker (near apocalyptic) and sometimes behaving more like a collection of short stories than an actual novella.

It's a multigeneration story of survival packed into 120-something pages. People will often complain about novellas being too short, but I usually tend to disagree- most novellas are a perfect length, the format doing wonders for the story being told. Here I finally find myself agreeing. Apparently this is based on a short story. I probably would've preferred reading either the short story or an even more expanded version of it, into a full-length novel. This novella, while fascinating, felt incomplete.