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IT IS 2038. A creeping fungus has eaten Earth鈥檚 trees. Forget ecological heartbreak: now there is nothing to stop vast dust storms scouring skin, invading lungs, asphyxiating the unprotected with a new disease called rib retch, named after the cough that snaps ribs. Unless, that is, you are one of the 0.0001 per cent in air-filtered towers, or their lucky serfs.

The collapse of ecosystems was followed by that of the global economy. Only the world鈥檚 debt has survived.

Greenwood Island is the last refuge, a leafy oasis off the Vancouver coast that somehow escaped the 鈥淕reat Withering鈥�. Inevitably, it is now a wellness retreat for the super-rich.

Jacinda 鈥淛ake鈥� Greenwood was a top ecologist before the tree apocalypse. In a near-hopeless effort to repay her staggering student loan, she now works as a tour guide helping social media stars take good selfies with 1000-year-old Douglas firs. It becomes evident she might have some claim on this last sanctuary.

Thus begins Michael Christie鈥檚 Greenwood, an epic, ambitious quilt of themes, stitched together by the compelling arc of the family that may culminate with Jake. The narrative is arranged in concentric circles going back in time to evoke the rings we use to date trees. It is a clever conceit, uniting historical mystery, sci-fi and a psychological expos茅 of capitalism.

鈥淚n every ring, the characters face what must be the final apocalypse 鈥� and yet the world survives鈥�

This last is a new theme in speculative fiction as writers increasingly tune into 鈥渇inancialisation鈥�. The term describes how finance has relentlessly insinuated itself into our lives, making debtors of us all, through student loans, mortgages, interest on credit cards or instruments even now being devised.

The threat that financialisation poses is analogous to global warming, write David M. Higgins and Hugh C. O鈥機onnell in an essay in Speculative Finance/Speculative Fiction: 鈥淚t鈥檚 too big to see鈥� and it seems nearly unapproachable.鈥�

In Greenwood, Christie shows this playing out in individual lives and societies, revealing how we justify converting the natural world into a slag of money and profit.

The story鈥檚 鈥渞ings鈥� represent 鈥渁pocalyptic鈥� years 鈥� mostly economically induced. From 2038, the story moves to 2008, the most recent global economic crash, and then to 1974, and economic stagnation so bad few believed in recovery. Closer to the tree鈥檚 centre is 1934, as the Great Depression hits Toronto. 鈥淚t鈥檚 as though an artillery shell has gone off, loaded not with gunpowder but with despair and squalor,鈥� thinks Everett Greenwood, the other key figure through whose life the novel鈥檚 events radiate.

What stands out is how the people who lived through those years couldn鈥檛 conceive of life returning to normal. In every ring, the characters face what must be the final apocalypse, in many guises and at many scales. And yet the world always survives, scarcity and plenty recorded in the rings.

Returning to the apocalypse of 2038, Jake ponders if her era will be the last. 鈥淥r have all ages believed this? That life can鈥檛 possibly go on and that these are the end times? Still, things did go on. And on鈥︹��

This is hardly reassuring for those of us racked by climate anxiety. The rings of the trees are a testament to the fact that life has always continued. But in Greenwood鈥檚 2038, there are few trees left to keep that record. The only real record is debt.