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The Trees

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The Trees

By: Ali Shaw
Narrated by: Ben Onwukwe
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About this listen

There came an elastic aftershock of creaks and groans and then, softly softly, a chinking shower of rubbled cement. Leaves calmed and trunks stood serene. Where, not a minute before, there had been a suburb, there was now only woodland standing amid ruins.

There is no warning. No chance to prepare. They arrive in the night: thundering up through the ground, transforming streets and towns into shadowy forest. Buildings are destroyed. Broken bodies, still wrapped in tattered bed linen, hang among the twitching leaves.

Adrien Thomas has never been much of a hero. But when he realises that no help is coming, he ventures out into this unrecognisable world. Michelle, his wife, is across the sea in Ireland and he has no way of knowing whether the trees have come for her too. Then Adrien meets green-fingered Hannah and her teenage son Seb.

Together, they set out to find Hannah's forester brother, to reunite Adrien with his wife - and to discover just how deep the forest goes. Their journey will take them to a place of terrible beauty and violence, to the dark heart of nature and the darkness inside themselves.

©2016 Ali Shaw (P)2016 Bolinda Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction Marriage

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All stars
Most relevant  
Imagine if Parable of the Sower had a love child with The Day of the Triffids, that’s what this book is. What a joy. Read it.

Honestly, brilliant

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I loved the ideas in this. A world dominated by trees. Where a small group of survivors battle nature, men and a mystical realm to survive.

The action is kept close to the main players in the story. They are brilliantly drawn, particularly Hannah, whose principals and morals are seriously challenged by the new world.

The author tells a wonderful story, with totally original ideas, that kept me glued to my headphones.

Excellent narration too. A real winner.

A very green post-apocalyptic world.

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incredible. one of the best books I've ever listened too. nomadic, magical, mystical and adventurous.

nomadic woodland adventure.

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Maybe a slightly slow starter but stick with it, a riveting read. Beautifully read and relevant in so many ways. A fable for the 21st century and beyond.

Thoughtful and intriguing

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Trees take over. The world becomes a forest overnight. Our protagonists react in different ways - missing computers, comfort, a fridge full of food, or joyful at the transformation, hailing it as a reprieve from humanity's fatal detachment from nature. I did really enjoy this book. I resonated with the characters and really loved the strange resolution. But I do think the author missed out on a few threads that would have made it more realistic and more engaging: details about these civilization-softened people learning to forage, build shelters, hunt and make fires. How would we cope without modern medicines - which would make the proper management of even the smallest wound imperative? This lack of detail and real consideration about how we would survive being thrust back into a neolithic environment was a bit disappointing to someone like me who knows how hard won even basic bushcraft can be. But it was still engaging and approached some interesting philosophical ideas. Ben Onwukwe is a brilliant narrator, although I really do think he needs to work on his Irish accents!

Another Green World

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The book starts quite quickly with a whole load of trees shooting up through the Earth's surface and instantly turning the world into a post-apocalyptic wasteland. No more internet, no more roads and an awful lot of screaming and dying from those unlucky enough to be impaled on branches as they grew from the ground.

From this great set-up, we meander. We really meander. Our protagonists traipsing slowly to one location and then another, occasionally philosophising an awful lot about what this scenario means. There's a fantastical nature to this new landscape with Whisperers hiding among the leaves and Unicorn-esque creatures guiding the way. Many would have stopped at this point (from other reviews, many have) but if you continue on, much like the characters in the book, there's a reward of sorts. The ending is certainly divisive and who knows if it was for me (I'm still attempting to process what happened) but in the final chapters the book moves quickly, which was great and for the first time listening to it there was real interest to see how events would transpire. Unfortunately it was a little too late but the descriptions are evocative, the idea is immense and this is probably ripe for an interesting TV mini-series adaptation.

The narration was very crisp and clear - all in all, very good - and that cover is absolutely beautiful.

Interesting but slow

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Was it the writing, or the lugubrious, snail-paced narration? The premise was great - Trees take back the planet as a small band of survivors search for loved ones. The setup and mix of characters were full of promise. Yet the pedestrian dialogue and the droning narration finally got to me. Half-way through I simply couldn't take another plodding hour - even with the addition of a pet vixen cub to the shrinking band of characters. I'd love to know what happened but oh dear...

High Expectations but I Gave Up!

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Everybody has different tastes but to me this was such a brilliant idea but such a miserable reading.

Hard work

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I was unable to finish listening to this book because the horrible Irish accents the narrator gave many characters was so terrible I just couldn’t listen to any more.

Horrible narration

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Very very slow . Not what I was expecting from the blurb on what it was about . Not much happens and the characters were a bit cliched for my liking .

Not for me

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