The Native Star

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The Native Star
Author M. K. Hobson
Country United States
Language English
Genre Historical Fantasy
Publisher Bantam Spectra
Publication date
October 2010
Media type Print (Paperback)
ISBN 0-7653-1708-7
Followed by The Hidden Goddess

The Native Star is a historical fantasy novel, and the first novel from writer M. K. Hobson. It was nominated for the 2010 Nebula Award.

Plot summary

The Native Star is set in America in 1876, and follows the adventures of Emily Edwards, town witch of the tiny Sierra Nevada settlement of Lost Pine. Her business is suffering from the rise of mail-order patent magicks, and her only chance at avoiding the penury that is at her doorstep is to use a love spell to bewitch the town’s richest lumberman into marrying her.

When the love spell goes terribly wrong, Emily is forced to accept the aid of Dreadnought Stanton—a pompous and scholarly Warlock from New York — to set things right. Together, they travel from the seedy underbelly of San Francisco’s Barbary Coast, across the United States by transcontinental railroad and biomechanical flying machine, to the highest halls of American magical power only to find that love spells (and love) are more dangerous than either of them ever could have imagined.

Critical reception

The Native Star was included on Locus' Recommended Reading List for 2010[1] as well as several other "Top 10 of 2010" lists.[2][3][4] Publishers Weekly called it "Clever and original" and "[a] splendid debut." [5] It was nominated for the 2010 Nebula Award for Best Novel.[6]

Reviews

External links

References

  1. Locus, Recommended Reading List 2010 (First Novels), February 2011 (http://www.locusmag.com/Magazine/2011/Issue02_RecommendedReading.html)
  2. The Book Pushers, Top 10 reads of 2010 (http://thebookpushers.com/2010/12/31/our-top-reads-from-2010/)
  3. The Reader Eclectic, Top 10 of 2010 (http://www.thereadereclectic.com/?p=1153/)
  4. From the TBR Pile, Top 10 of 2010 (http://fromthetbrpile.blogspot.com/2010/12/10-on-10th.html/)
  5. Publishers Weekly Review (on Amazon.com page)
  6. http://www.sfwa.org/2011/02/2010-nebula-nominees/