Winter 2027 – emma houdijk – Become a Tree or Die

“‘Father, help me! If your streams

have heavenly power, change me! Destroy

my beauty which has brought too much delight!’

Scarcely has she made this plea, when she feels

a heavy numbness move across her limbs,

her soft breasts are enclosed by slender bark,

her hair turns to leaves, her arms to branches,

her feet, so swift a moment before, stick fast

in sluggish roots, a covering of foliage

spreads across her face. All that remains of her is her

shining beauty.”

The paragraph above is the conclusion to the lyric poem “Apollo and Daphne” by Ovid. In the poem, the nymph Daphne flees Apollo’s amorous pursuit and begs for her beauty to be taken from her, which concludes in her transformation into a laurel tree. I, like many others, have ascribed my own meanings to the poem. Works by the likes of Homer, Virgil, and Ovid stem from a sociocultural context so far removed from ours that they can be reinvented every century, if not every decade.

“Apollo and Daphne” is a story about a nymph being chased by a god and transformed into a tree. It is also a story that details the selfishness and fickle natures of the Olympian gods in the Greek mythological tradition. It is a story about modern gender norms and sexual violence, the inability of men to take no for an answer. It is a story about aromantic and asexual identity, about (as Ovid states in the poem) “emulating virgin Phoebe,” who rejected marriage and took no lovers. Personally, the element that continuously draws me to this story is the simple and electrifying idea of a person turning into a tree. This concept is evidently ancient and is still explored extensively in speculative fiction today. What is it about a metamorphosis from human to tree that speaks to me, to us, so deeply?

The 2026 novel Arborescence by Rhett Davis questions, as the blurb states, “what it really means to be human.” The story takes place in Australia and follows the relationship between Caelyn and Bren, who are awoken from their corporate and academic slumps with the emergence of an unimaginable global phenomenon: people from all walks of life are standing still and becoming trees. As Caelyn’s personal and academic fascination with these “arborescents” grows and jumpstarts her professional career, both she and Bren are forced to confront their beliefs about the value and purpose of human life. While arborescence’s potential to restore the world’s threatened ecosystems becomes clearer every day, the main characters grapple with the question of whether their ideological differences can be reconciled, and what kind of life they really want to live.

The novel does not shy away from sociopolitical commentary, and it delivers these ideas with a striking and powerful clarity. Arborescence is set in the near future, starting roughly in 2030, which encourages the reader to reflect on the critical moment in history we’re currently living through. One effective theme in the novel is the growing presence of artificial intelligence in our everyday lives, especially topical in 2026, when AI has infiltrated almost every part of our existence.

Bren works a job plowing through a never-ending mysterious list of prompts called “the Queue,” completing random projects like giving the definition of a cloud, or designing an imaginary city called Hopetopia. He says: “I attempt to find some shape in the Queue, some sense of order, some indication that there is something to latch on to, something real. A purpose for what I’ve been doing these past few years. It’s impossible to find.” Bren experiences what it’s like working under late-stage capitalism, having a job that is unfulfilling, monotonous, and seems to make no difference in the world. Halfway through the novel he is laid off, as “the Queue no longer requires authentic human interfaces.”

In his conversation with the company’s representative, he finds out the man is an actor, instructed through an earpiece by an AI telling him what to do and say. Off the record, he recommends this same job to Bren for easy money. I found this chapter particularly effective in conveying my own fears regarding AI, seeing as it blatantly displays the subservience of human decision-making and autonomy in an AI-centered corporate model, a possible future I and many others dread deeply.

Davis’ critique is well-executed, neither leaning too heavily in the direction of science fiction nor extreme realism. It lands, rather, in a sweet spot of refreshing recognition. However, he disappoints me by never explicitly correlating AI to the environmental degradation that Caelyn concerns herself with. The two themes are treated as separate, and AI is painted as a symptom of a failing society and dying planet, rather than a key player in accelerating these looming disasters.

Some of this disappointment is remedied through the novel’s extensive exploration of humanity’s responsibility towards nature. Often, we see nature as Other, as an area of conquest, as object rather than life. Arborescence stresses not only the importance of nature’s preservation for our planet’s survival but argues that the boundary between people and plants is not as clear as we assume. Through the process of arborescence, nature becomes an actor with agency, an unstoppable force. The novel compels us to consider trees as equals, and uses metamorphosis as a device to break down the human-nature barrier and incite empathy for plant life.

During the first wave of arborescents gaining online traction, Caelyn is one of very few people who doesn’t believe that the phenomenon is merely a cult, illness, or scientific experiment. Her fascination with arborescents leads her to interview multiple communities that are actively trying to “stand still,” and she dedicates her PhD to the topic (much to the ridicule and disapproval of her supervisor). Caelyn is a believer in a world of sceptics, and although the novel introduces multiple characters that are arborescing themselves, she is their mouthpiece to the public and the reader, advocating for their cause.

At first, it feels natural to root for Caelyn, the hopeful believer that cares about nature. However, Davis masterfully details the tunnel vision that can come with advocating radical beliefs. Caelyn takes up space and overshadows the experiences of true arborescents in the name of helping them. Through her activism and academic career, she gains wealth, status, and constantly travels by carbon dioxide-emitting planes to attend conferences. She becomes complicit in the system she set out to change.

Bren is her recurring interlocutor, the sceptic to Caelyn’s believer. Initially, he is convinced that arborescents are merely people who are mentally ill or part of a cult. When this is proven wrong, the couple’s arguments become more nuanced. Instead of grappling with the question if arborescents are real, they grapple with the possibility of the human race disappearing altogether. In their ideological debate, Caelyn emphasizes humanity’s destructive effect on the earth: “‘I can see, […] that the world is sick, that it is deeply, deeply sick, and while we have caused it there is nothing our stupid meat brains can do to fix it. We can’t control ourselves, our greed, our urges.’”

On the other hand, Bren does not think that arborescence is the answer: “‘I believe that people are good, and worth saving. Yes: we’re worth saving. We’re broken, but we’re incredible. You, you’re advocating for balance by telling us all to jump off a cliff.’” Davis embeds these opposite philosophical ideas into two grounded and realistic characters and handles them less as abstract musings than real and threatening possibilities.

Ironically, and also typically human, the characters abandon these stances when arborescence starts affecting them directly in their private lives. When Bren’s mother starts to arboresce, he changes his tune: “It was always going to happen, this correction. I’m surprised at how gentle it is. It’s a calm but unsettling rebalancing.” Meanwhile, Caelyn starts looking into cures for arborescence, saying “maybe we’re worth saving.” At the climax of the novel, when Bren himself is in the process of arborescence, it is Caelyn who forcefully takes him out, and says: “I couldn’t. Not You. And yes, I’m aware I’m a hypocrite.”

Davis subverts our usual perception of human-plant relationships and makes it so, for once, it is humanity’s survival that is compromised. But he is not writing a straightforward revenge fantasy in which humans and trees are pitted against each other. As Bren says, humans and trees are on the same side: They are simply life in different forms. The enemy is consumerism, capitalism, and death. Caelyn’s “saving” Bren does not change the tide in the process of “rebalancing,” but it is a raw and powerful display of her humanity, as necessary as it is flawed.

The end of the novel reveals that, considering the rate at which people are transforming, humanity will dwindle down to near extinction. The characters have no choice but to accept this outcome. People will arboresce, whether they like it or not. In real life, the future is not as inevitable as in Arborescence. We are faced with a choice to pursue profit and power, or to save the planet. The answer depends on whether we are capable, as a species, to set aside our greed. The novel frustratingly, or mercifully, leaves this question open-ended.

This raises the question of what the novel can actually do for us in the current moment. Is it saying something we don’t already know? Arborescence’s use of botanical transformations seems to align with a recurring idea, if not a trend, in recent fictional works. What comes to mind first is an emergent sub-genre within young adult fiction colloquially called “queer botanical horror.” This subgenre includes works like Don’t Let the Forest In by C.G. Drews, Wilder Girls by Rory Power, Summer Sons by Lee Mandelo, and A Botanical Daughter by Noah Medlock, which were all published between 2019 and 2024. In these novels, characters undergo a botanical metamorphosis that forces them to grow closer to nature and reconsider their position in society. Of course, there is also Elif Shafak’s incredibly popular 2021 novel The Island of Missing Trees, in which tree metamorphosis is painted as a manifestation of human love.

In the wake of late-stage capitalism and the rising influence of right-wing politics, it is no surprise to me that the 2020s are seeing the popularity of plant metamorphoses in literature. While humanity could not be further removed from the natural world, and environmental destruction is an everyday reality, we yearn to reconnect to the planet around us. Narratives of tree metamorphosis not only reintroduce attention and consideration for the natural world but are tools for negotiating its agency and position vis à vis humanity. They are a reminder and a promise that we will never truly be separate.

In Arborescence, tree metamorphosis is grounded in the context of environmental crises, forcing us to question the power and responsibility we have to restore the nature we’ve destroyed. It is not the first novel that uses botanical metamorphosis to explore societal issues in the 2020s, but it adds to a steady stream of literary voices that might one day become a flood. Frankly speaking, the planet is running out of time, and with the rise of AI in the arts, it is works like Arborescence that become crucial in reminding us who we really are, and what we stand to lose.

Its main characters get at the heart of how it feels to live in today’s world. Bren and Caelyn are not heroes or aliens, but deeply genuine and flawed people. Through this unflinching relatability, the novel gives us a chance to imagine what if, and forces us to choose what side we want to be on. For this realistic, nuanced, and hopeful portrayal of humanity, Rhett Davis is an author to look out for.

“[…] a covering of foliage

spreads across her face. All that remains of her is her

shining beauty.”

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