This was another novel that I read because it was up for an award (The Locus, if I recall correctly). Comparisons to Susannah Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell seem to turn up in the description, but other than being set in the 19th century and meticulously researched, they don't have all that much in common. Clarke wrote an honest to goodness Victorian novel, despite not having been born to the time. Hobson did a good job setting her novel in the 1800s, but did not recreate the era stylistically.
In terms of setting and world building, Hobson's novel is quite good. She has a great handle on what the world her characters were living in would have been like and, while there are the inevitable moments of 21st century feminist sensibilities that creep in, they fit fairly well in context of the novel and can be explained by its alternate universe aspect.
What annoyed me the most was when I realized I was reading a trashy romance novel. This critique independent of whether or not there is any romance in the story. While there was all this great, creative stuff going on with magic and the magical aspects of this America, there was this incredibly predictable and banal love story blocking my view. I use the term trashy romance novel because those novels almost always follow a certain pattern and the rate at which the heroine meets the hero, hates the hero, comes to respect the hero, loves him, finds out something horrible and decides to give him up only to be united happily with him in the end is pretty consistent from one book to the next. There are exceptions, and I love when a good (especially a good trashy) romance novel subverts my expectations, but this book, at least for the romance plot, trod neatly along the well-worn path and it bothered me. I felt a bit cheated - here was this new book that had these great ideas and research and the author couldn't even borrow a little of that creativity for the love story? Just a little? There were so many excellent sf&f books up for an award this year that had, or even focused on the development of a romantic relationship between the main characters, and they felt new and fresh and brilliant.
Native Star was definitely a good offering and, if I'd known what I was getting into, I might have enjoyed it more because I would not have had all these expectations that were disappointed.
This was not a bad book, not by any stretch of the imagination. It just wasn't as good as I was expecting.