If you spread the pieces of The Native Star over a table, this escapist novel seems to have everything: a cross-continent journey; a giant mutated raccoon; a small amount of romance; fun, if archetypical, characters (which equals here a somewhat predictable outcome); and a love of the magical/mechanical gadgets and the overlong, multi-syllabic, faux-19th century descriptions on which the genre of Steampunk survives. Together, these pieces never seem to reach much depth, but the goal is clearly like that of bad television: enough of a story to help you pass a few hours, and if you really want an escape, the promise of similar stories to come. Enjoyable enough, for what it is, I just wish enough here felt like something more.
