Book Review of Nine Layers of Sky by Liz Williams

Elena, a former scientist, is 35 years old, and stranded by hard economic times in a hardscrabble town in Kazakhstan. She cleans office buildings for a living, saving up so that she, her sister, and mother can start a new life in Canada.  While selling some black-market items in Uzbekistan, she finds a small, enigmatic sphere in the street and takes it home. 

Meanwhile, in Saint Petersburg, Ilya sits in his dreary flat, shooting up heroin.  Suddenly he gets a sinister visitor who knows what he really is: an immortal folk-hero known as a bogatyr who has lived through 800 years of Russian history and now longs to die. The visitor hires Ilya to retrieve a mysterious artifact (yes, the sphere that Elena found). 

Ilya tracks it to Kazakhstan where Elena agrees to sell it to his employers. The two of them set up a meet only to find his employers killed by supernatural beings. The two of them get framed for the murder. Fleeing the police, they escape to Kyrgyzstan where they encounter Manas, a hostile bogatyr, and other supernaturals clearly from a parallel world where a more prosperous and magical Russia exists (though they, too, have a form of Soviet government). 

By now Elena and Ilya have fallen in love in a touching and realistic way; both are desperately lonely people. They use Elena's sphere to cross into the parallel Russia where nature spirits and horse clans vie with Soviets over whether or not the "gates" should be closed between the parallel worlds. 

Apparently this parallel Russia has been "bleeding off" the dreams and vitality of "our" Russia. Here at Obsidianbookshelf.com, I liked Elena and Ilya. This window into that part of the world is deeply fascinating. In how many fantasy novels these days do you get the viewpoints of Russians and their Asiatic, Islamic neighbors in the eastern territories? 
Links:

• Buy at Amazon.com: Nine Layers of Sky
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• Go to the Fantasy page

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