Book Review: ‘The Shade of Highfall: Return to Reality’ by Mark O’Dell

Title: The Shade of Highfall: Return to Reality

Author: Mark O’Dell

Publisher: Pegasus Publishers

Publication Date: 2023

The Shade of Highfall: Return to Reality is the sequel to Mark O’Dell’s debut novel: The Tale of Shrew.

Whereas The Tale of Shrew falls firmly into the high fantasy genre, Return to Reality takes the story into the realm of science fiction. I knew about the genre shift prior to reading the book and I was curious to know how O’Dell was going to achieve this change.

The novel starts with Shrew travelling to the Gloamril forest. Things quickly go wrong when she is transported to Earth, 2097. To return home Shrew is forced to make a deal with the powerful AI Fainn and its human puppet Mallak. They will send her home if, and only if, she joins the Phoenix Project and helps guide a ship through the Naraka Construct which orbits a black hole. Fainn’s influence and spies are everywhere and Shrew has no idea who to trust.

I’ll admit I was very nervous during the first few chapters when it appeared O’Dell had played the ‘it-was-all-a-dream’ card in regards to the entire events of the first novel. Thankfully this was not the case. As the plot progressed, clear narrative references were revealed which linked parts of the sequel back to the world of Highfall and saw magic and science combine. Return to Reality includes several deliberate mis-directions and, once I discovered the true direction the novel was going in, my concerns were eased.

For me this is a story of two halves.

The first half the book focuses on Shrew’s time on Earth as she prepares for her forced mission. The purpose of these chapters is to showcase the new world Shrew finds herself in. As a result there is a lot of exposition in this opening half as Shrew moves through locations and meets many new characters. While it was interesting to explore this future-Earth, the pace of the story was noticeably slower when compared to later chapters. It also meant that it took me a little while to truly get into the story.

For the second half of the book the story moves into the sub-genre of ‘space opera’ – with Shrew and the crew onboard the Pathfinder ship. I really enjoyed this part of the novel. The claustrophobic setting of the spaceship worked really well with the growing tension and mistrust amongst the crew. There were also a few good action scenes that utilised the layout of the ship effectively as Shrew and her friends found themselves fighting to stay alive.

Throughout the novel, the reader is placed into the same position as Shrew – both are learning about the dysfunctional Earth and its technology at the same time. Equally, Return to Reality is filled with seemingly morally ambiguous characters; including: Trilyan, Auva, Xing, and Rigel. If she is to survive Shrew must quickly decide who can and cannot be trusted and I appreciated that, as a reader, I was able to go on this journey at the same pace as her.

It’s fair to say that in Return to Reality O’Dell takes one of the biggest gambles I have ever seen in a sequel. The move from high fantasy to sci-fi means that this novel intentionally puts aside the world building achieved in The Tale of Shrew and trusts solely in the character of Shrew herself to guide new and existing readers. The novel is a thought-provoking experiment and one I think the author just manages to pull off (especially in the story’s second half). I suspect Return to Reality will divide fans of the original novel and I’m curious to find out their thoughts.

An Advanced Reader Copy of ‘Return to Reality’ and the images used in this review were kindly provided by Mark O’Dell. For more of his work check out his account on Goodreads.

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