She is an astrophysicist who used to be part of a team launching rockets and spaceships in the pre-perestroika Soviet Union. Now, that union is history and she cleans an office building in Kazakhstan. Elena Irinovna is lucky. Even menial work is hard to find. He was one of the great heroes of Russian history. His legendary feats are told to children as bedtime stories. Ilya Muromyets should have died 700 years ago. But, he is still around, mired in heroin addiction, alcoholism and despair. What can this thoroughly modern woman and completely passe man have in common? They will discover a common purpose in the second third of this novel, Nine Layers of Sky.
Though relatively new to speculative or science fiction, Liz Williams has made herself one of the writers to watch in the genre. The Poison Master and The Empire of Bones were not just well-received, but hailed. Williams' latest novel does not disappoint.
An object will bring the two unlikely heroes together. During a trip across the border to Uzbekistan, Elena stumbles upon a mysterious metal ball that was likely stolen by the two dead men associated with it. Curious, she researches the artifact, but can find out nothing about it from artistic or scientific sources. Simultaneous with her research, odd events begin to occur around her. Among them is an apparent murder attempt by a ghoul who is beheaded by a down at the heels man wielding a sword. That man is Ilya Muromyets. He becomes the liason between Elena and persons who are willing to pay a sizeable price for the artifact. When the buyers are torn to shreds by supernatural beings, the two must disappear from Kazahstan fast or face detainment or worse.
When they are on the lam the artifact begins to reveal its secrets. Time and again, one or both of them is briefly shifted to another place, possibly another time. In that place, which they recognize from Russian legend, a 'new and improved' Soviet Union exists. There is no question that Byelovodye is new to most modern Russians, but is it an improvement over the long and often sorrowful history of Mother Russia? That is the question Elena must ultimately answer. She will be offered a choice between this shiny, new troubled place, which lives off the dreams of the larger world on the other side, and the degraded former Soviet Union she loves, but can barely survive in.
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