Arborescence (novel)
Arborescence is a novel by Rhett Davis published in 2025.
Themes and analysis
Luke Johnson of the University of Wollongong described the book as belonging to the new sincerity wave of literature, while also analysing the book under Joseph Campbell's framework proposed in The Masks of God, saying that "Arborescence sits closer to the animistic end of this continuum than the religious. Somehow reminiscent of the simulated animal calls found in Peter Sculthorpe’s music and the tortured and distorted figures rising out of the landscape in Arthur Boyd’s Nebuchadnezzar paintings, Davis’s representations tap into hybrid kinships that precede stuffy Enlightened conceptions of culture and spirituality."Critical reception
Robert Goodman of The Newtown Review of Books praised the book as a "triumph of Australian speculative fiction," saying that "Davis builds out his weird premises slowly, bringing the reader along into a shocking but somehow believable alternate future. And he uses this groundwork, in beautifully deployed prose, as a lens through which to explore deep, global questions about the environment and human autonomy in the digital age as well as very personal issues related to family and relationships and grief and loss."Caleb Klaces of The Guardian reviewed the book as "an even-tempered, quietly satirical speculative novel.. the writing is quick and careful, punchline-adjacent and mildly disorienting," but criticised it as "an econovel that feels insulated from real ecological crisis."