Ex Libris: Liz William's Nine Layers of Sky

Honestly, I'm not sure how to take Liz Williams' Nine Layers of Sky.

Overall, I'm impressed by the output of this up-and-coming writer who deftly combines science-fiction with fantastical elements or fantasy elements with science-fiction explanations (but not necessarily turning it into science-fantasy). Who else can come up with books about a vision of a far-future Mars and 'ghost' technology or the connection between 16th century alchemist John Dee and alien slave-lords?

Unfortunately, I really didn't take to this one.

The way I figure it, there are two kinds of writers: one who does wonderful works with ideas and one who does the same for words. Or as Lou Anders says:

Simply put, I demand that my writers be more intelligent than I am. Now, that intelligence can manifest in a particularly skillful and seductive prose style, or that intelligence can manifest in the presentation of an idea that enlightens my mind or expands my imagination.

Heck, anyone can write, any writer can write a story, and any good writer can write a good story. But not just anyone can weave ideas or prose or even both together to create a good book. In this case, Williams does her magic with ideas.

In Nine Layers of Sky, Williams takes a look at the mythology and history of Russia, giving a science-fiction spin to the collective nature of a nation's dreams and aspirations. Considering Russia's socialist past, it's extremely apt.

The main protagonist, Elena, is an out-of-work Soviet space program scientist working as a janitor in a post-communism Russia, a country that currently "runs on... dreams and air." While trying to earn money via illicit means, she finds a mysterious object that brings her in contact with Ilya, an 800-year-old bogatyr or Russian national hero (think Highlander the immortal but without the head-cutting). Discovering that the object can open a gate to a world shaped by Russian dreams, the two are forced to go on the run when factions seeking the object try to take it from them. Amidst the chase, the two fall in love.

As I mentioned before, Williams manages to give a science-fiction spin to Russian mythology. For example, she cites the similarity between the Russian legend of the rusalka and the Americans' penchant for alien abductions:

"So? You think Americans don't have legends, tell stories? The rusalki are like aliens-- the little grey things who abduct people. Do you know that several thousand Americans claim to have had this experience? Not all of them have come back. Of course, we in Russia, being superior... have beautiful girls instead of little monsters. But I believe they are the same thing. And they are not alien to the sense that they are from another another planet. They move between this world and the other."

Williams also manages to paint a descriptive picture of modern Russia with its broken dreams and its people's aspirations of a better future. In this case, Elena, with her dream of moving to Canada with her mother and younger sister, reminded me so much of well-educated Filipinos who have migrated abroad to work menial jobs in order to earn money.

Overall, it's a well-written book with favorable characters and an interesting concept. However, like I said before, Nine Layers of Sky didn't work all that well for me since I wasn't really sure where it was taking me. Williams' hints of a successful Russia formed out of its dreams remained so ethereal as its promise that it really didn't set my imagination on fire. Likewise, the quest-premise of the story (Elena and Ilya's search for the promised Russia and their own search for their place in the world) seemed to wander all over the map without resolving itself properly.

Funny enough, I realized my feelings about the book was given form by Williams herself when she commented in her Livejournal about the ambivalence her new book was getting. Williams sez (parentheses mine):

I've noticed a real polarisation on this novel - it's had on the most part some excellent reviews, but some very different points of view. Publisher's Weekly thinks I've gone too far and too weird. (Interzone) thinks it isn't weird enough, harks back to (Clifford) Simak, and I need to be more original. SFX said that the future world was lacking in that sense of melancholy that characterises a lot of far future fiction, IZ thinks it has it in spades.

They all think I might write something amazing one day. Hmmmm. I do try.

And I concur: Liz Williams has great promise, it's only a matter of time. Luckily, I have her next book, Banner of Souls, and will be on the lookout for her other books in hopes that the one I just read was just a minor burp.