Nine Layers of Sky
Liz Williams
427 pages
published in 2003

Is it just me, or is Liz Williams far less well known than she deserves to be? She hasn't been discussed much at rec.arts.sf.written, nor have I heard her mentioned in the same way as other newish British writers like China Miéville or Alistair Reynolds. I have no idea why this is so, as she is published in the US as well as the UK and judging from this novel, her work should appeal to at least some science fiction readers. Nine Layers of Sky is well written, with both an interesting plot and engaging characters, not to mention an interesting new take on alternate worlds.

Nine Layers of Sky is set in Kazachstan, home of Baikanour, where the Soviet Union had it greatest rocket base, where Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin were launched from. Elena Irinovna was one of the Russians working on the base when the Soviet Union collapsed and like the base, she was now living in a new, strange country, one where she and other ethnic Russians were increasingly unwanted. Once a scientist, she now works as a janitor.

To supplement her meager salary, she goes on a trip to Uzbekistan to sell black-market jeans, which is where the book starts and her troubles begin. During an incident at the border crossing she finds a small black sphere with some strange properties. Before too long, several different groups are looking for both her and the sphere and none of them are nice people...

One such group has hired Ilya Muromyets, a bogantyr, one of the legendary heroes of ancient Russia, now a junkie looking for a way to die, but unfortunately for him, death can only come at the hands of another bogantyr. He is supposed to find and deliver Elena to his clients, but instead ends up her protector, rescuing her from the Rusalki, demonic creatures as legendary as Ilya himself.

The device Elena has found seems to have come from a second reality, another Russia, a Russia where the Communist dream has not faded, a reality more dream than anything else (and as usual with alternate realities, filled with zeppelins rather than aircraft). But what exactly the relationship is between the bogantyr, the rusalki, this alternative Russia and the black sphere is a mystery it takes Elena the entire book to unravel.

Liz Williams has a good sense of place, managing to draw the relaities of early 21st Kazachstan quite well. Which isn't that surprising, as she lived there for a couple of years in the nineties. It shows not just in the big political realities, but in the everyday details of life. It all feels real. Kazachstan is an organic part of the novel.

In general, Nine Layers of Sky is a sophisticated, modern science fiction novel, a novel that takes the best features of science fiction and "mainstream" literature and fuses them effortlessly. Wholly recommended.