colleen the convivial curmudgeon's Reviews > The Native Star

3.75

When a book is compared to Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, I expect not just an alt-history with magic, but a lushness of prose and ambiance - which I didn't quite find here.

I was also thrown, a bit, by the description referring to it as a tale of the Wild, Wild West - which, for me, conjures images of dusty towns and tumbleweeds and saloons and gunfights more than a small, rural town in the frontier somewhere. But that's more on me than the book.

But while what I got wasn't quite what I was expecting, it still managed to acquit itself rather nicely, in the end.

At the beginning I wasn't so sure. I liked the characters of Miss Emily Edwards and Dreadnought Stanton well enough - despite the ridiculous name - but it was a bit slow going to start and didn't quite grip me. I'd say it was roughly a 3 star book until about half-way.

But as the story developed, and I started to like them more (despite some of their more unlikable moments - the moments of pride and prejudice, if you will) - I started to become more invested in their plight... and there was a lot of plight, what with jealous lovers, aberrant monsters, everyone trying to get their hand of the stone, witch burners, assassins, so on and so forth - and some of it was quite tense and suspenseful.

Aside from that, though, I liked the discussions of the different types of magic and magicians and the interactions therein. The credomancers reminded me a little bit of Granny Weatherwax's headology, and also of more ritualized forms of high magic, whereas animacy is a more shamanistic, natural form of magic - and it mixes in some disdain that ceremonialists have for hedge witches, blending with the misogyny of the time period. (Though to refer to Wicca, specifically, as an ancient practice isn't historically accurate, but since it's an alt-history/universe kind of book, we'll give that a pass.)

It was also nice to see different examples of the different forms of magic, and the entrance of Miss Pendennis who was a welcome presence in the predominantly chauvinistic male world. (And I don't mean that in the sense that male automatically equals chauvinistic, but most of the men in this story are presented as such. It fits, with the time period, though was a bit heavy-handed at times.)

Anyway - overall I ended up liking both the world that was created as well as the characters, including the romance elements, though there was some of the "would you just talk it out already" moments where I sort of just wanted to shake some sense into them both.

By the end I was fairly hooked, and stayed up late last night eating it up. So, all in all, I'd say that's a success.

***

One thing, though - this totally isn't steampunk. There is only one machine in the book which would remotely qualify - and it's not a steam-powered anachronism as much as it's a piece of half mechanical and half biological product of magi-tech.

Being as how I didn't realize it was even meant to be steampunk, according to some, until I read some of the reviews, I wasn't in the least bit bothered by this. But if I had gone into this expecting steampunk, I would've been disappointed by it's general absence.