Set in an A/U California in the late 1800s The Native Star starts with Em Edwards, small town witch, making a pretty bad decision. And then there are zombies, which never helps anything (zombiephiles they are only featured for maybe two chapters if that, but it was pretty unexpected and awesome) and in this case leads to a mysterious magical artifact attaching itself to Em's hand. Now she needs help from the insufferable Dreadnought Stanton to get it out. Things don't go smoothly.

What I liked: See above re Zombies. Also liked the Witches union rep (I forget her name and I don't have the book with me. It was a hard name, like Pennebis or something. Don't judge me.) The three types of magic were pretty awesome, the characters were fleshed out I felt, old timey slang daggunit! M.K. Hobson did a good job with the atmosphere of the book, it felt very rustic like I should be reading it in a log cabin.

What I did not like: 'Redskins', really? Let's not play Em's more than a bit racist. Yeah it's set in the 1870s but it's an 1870s full of witches and warlocks. The whole thing was just, problematic in my opinion, if you're going to go out of your way to include feminism you can't use 'olden times were different' as an excuse with race. Also the made up words, while I appreciated them trying to be all complex and mimick real life it got a bit tiring after awhile. Try saying Mantic Anastimosis five times fast.

Overall a solid three stars, great read while camping.