Title: Nine Layers of Sky
Author: Liz Williams
Rating:
3.5 stars out of 5Publisher: Bantam Spectra
Copyright: 2003
Pages: 427
Keywords: fantasy
Reading period: 29 May–1 June, 2008
Ilya Muromyets, a figure of Russian legend for 800 years,
still lives, albeit mostly in a haze of narcotic self-pity.
He is recruited to track down a mysterious artifact
found by a former cosmologist, Elena Irinonova, in Kazahkstan.
Others also seek the artifact,
which can open a gate to a parallel world
where humans and other races live.
That world, Byelovodye, quite literally is the sum of
human dreams and fears,
and the disillusionment in the post-Soviet republics
is destabilizing it.
A very unusual, well-written take on the fantasy quest.