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විස්මිත සිහින දකින්නා
ඓන්ද්රීය සංවේදන පරාසයෙන් ඔබ්බෙහි නොනැවතී රළ නඟන අනන්ත අපරිමාණ රහස් සාගරයෙන් බිඳක් පමණක් වත් හෙළි කරන්නට වෙර දරණ පරිකල්පනයේ සාහිත්යමය විද්යා ගවේෂණය.
182 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2008
12 people are currently reading
72 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
April 1, 2016
A gem among Sinhalese science fiction! Loved the way the stories are woven with scientific concepts. This is a very delicious book I am definitely going to read many times. Hope this author will write more and more.
June 27, 2013
While the use of language was not that great and the stories seemed like cliches, I enjoyed reading this book. The book was extremely fast paced and keep you hooked.
March 14, 2024
"...අනාගතයට යන්න පුළුවන් එකම විදිහ වර්ථමානයට මුහුණ දීම විතරයි."🌟
(පි.119)
(පි.119)
August 3, 2018
When I started reading it I had my doubts and I braced myself for an excruciating ordeal. I expected someone's amateurish attempt at something I held sacred - science fiction. As expected, at first the narration sounded much like a poor translation of a good science fiction. That's right a 'good' science fiction - which I didn't expect - written in 'written Sinhala'. Consequently, as the plot thickened, the artificial nature of the dialogues ceased to bother and it started to grow on me. Then it occurred to me that the writer of Vismitha Sihina Dakinna (The Fantasy Dreamer) - Damitha Nipunajith - who is akin to professional writers in his attention to detail, shows some promise.
Reading the opening story - Adisi Awiya (The invisible weapon) - the first thing that hit me was that his choice of an opening story - about a senior officer of a US military research facility cum time traveller's visit to Jules Verne in 19th century France - was a grave mistake. While also admitting the difficulty of localizing science fiction, it is apparent that he has repeatedly chosen foreign settings, the synthetic dialogues only helping to increase its artificial nature. But his accounts of the foreign settings are convincing, the only thing out of place being the language it is narrated in, making it seem more like a translation.
His diction although slightly laboured, is peppered with scientific and technical terms - that may have been easier to grasp in English, even for a Sri Lankan - and carries an underlying wit, for example when the writer refers to Bonn's laboratory as a "scientific mess in the true sense of the word." Nipunajith's scientific expertise is most evident in his diction as well as the plot of Supiri Kapataya (Super Valve), a discovery of accident. It implies that the human race is not technologically, culturally and specially mentally evolved enough to make such leaps of discovery as time travel. And until such time the invisible forces of the universe prevent us from making the discovery. This would explain why we are yet to discover time travel or evidence of extra terrestrial life!
However Nipunajith's true intelligence as a science fiction writer is explicit in the manner in which he redeems himself from having to explain new inventions that human technology, culture nor the mind can grasp. Bonn, in Supiri Kapataya says referring to his new invention "I admit that I can't explain the mechanism of its workings...." The writer not only saves himself from having to explain something so out of the world but also makes the excuse more convincing. He leaves nothing to science fantasy.
But my favourite and undoubtedly one of the most original is the title story, Vismitha Sihina Dakinna (The Fantasy Dreamer). As in all of the other stories he builds up curiosity through the narration, beating around the bush. Unable to suppress my curiosity, taking a sneak peak at the end of the story I was pleasantly surprised to see the familiar name 'Arthur Charles Clarke'! mentor of all science fiction writers Sri Lankan. Actually come to think of it this short story would explain the prophet in Sir Arthur Clarke.
By the time the collection reaches 'Varthawa' (The Report) woven around a journalist's quest for the story of his life, the dialogues have become more realistic and colloquial, shedding the 'written Sinhala'. In a collection of short stories, each story apparently totally different from the other, the only consistency seems to be the writer's obsession with time travel (Except for the fact that all the stories except Adisi Aviya and Vismitha Sihina Dakinna are tragedies). In fact the theme of time travel is so recurrent it almost seems like an infatuation, although he manages to present it in a different light in every short story and thereby justify it. Moreover Nipunajith is well versed in paradoxes of time travel like the grandfather and the bootstrap paradoxes. He seems to have explored whole new possibilities in time travel - for example the mechanism of time travel in 'Varthawa', in which only the spirit or the astral body is allowed to travel back in time, is mind boggling.
I wonder if Nipunajith is a Hollywood movie buff because 'Avisvasaya' (The Distrust), reminds me of 'Final Destination'. Although 'Aviswasaya' is an individual piece of writing in it's own right, the two plots have many similarities. As Death follows those who escaped their fate, in 'Final Destination', in 'Aviswasaya' an invisible force is after the men from the future, determined to stop them from influencing the past at any cost. In 'Aviswasaya' Nipunajith provides a plausible explanation for all the lost civilizations. Reading the epilogue christened the 'Writers epilogue' readers may momentarily confuse the Voice of Mac with the writers'.
A parallel can be drawn between the plot of 'Sihinaya' (The Dream) - where extra terrestrial keep human minds under control by making humans believe that the video game-like dream world they are forced to live in is their reality while their reality is what they have learned to consider as their dreams! - and a few blockbusters including Matrix.
Although his plots share many similarities with blockbusters and best sellers - which maybe pure coincidence after all - he gives the theories new life, with his explicit imagination.
His short story, 'Athmaakramanaya' (Invasion of the spirit) is an apocalyptic story, a typical War-of-the-World scenario. But its extreme attention to detail and the winding plot is evidence of the writers resourceful imagination. It is a perfect antithesis to the last story of the collection. Apparently, Nipunajith has saved the best for last. His 'Vijaya Deshaya' is set in India, written in the perspective of a special Indian task force observing the latest developments in Sri Lanka with envy.
In this ingenious story the writer makes a daring attempt to consider astrology as technology and in this he is a pioneer. He builds curiosity for quite a few pages into the story until he reveals that the secret behind Sri Lankas success is indeed astrology. The story shows distinct originality. Further ahead of the story he switches to Buddhism and then meditation, but is successful in justifying the theory's scientific soundness.
Reading the opening story - Adisi Awiya (The invisible weapon) - the first thing that hit me was that his choice of an opening story - about a senior officer of a US military research facility cum time traveller's visit to Jules Verne in 19th century France - was a grave mistake. While also admitting the difficulty of localizing science fiction, it is apparent that he has repeatedly chosen foreign settings, the synthetic dialogues only helping to increase its artificial nature. But his accounts of the foreign settings are convincing, the only thing out of place being the language it is narrated in, making it seem more like a translation.
His diction although slightly laboured, is peppered with scientific and technical terms - that may have been easier to grasp in English, even for a Sri Lankan - and carries an underlying wit, for example when the writer refers to Bonn's laboratory as a "scientific mess in the true sense of the word." Nipunajith's scientific expertise is most evident in his diction as well as the plot of Supiri Kapataya (Super Valve), a discovery of accident. It implies that the human race is not technologically, culturally and specially mentally evolved enough to make such leaps of discovery as time travel. And until such time the invisible forces of the universe prevent us from making the discovery. This would explain why we are yet to discover time travel or evidence of extra terrestrial life!
However Nipunajith's true intelligence as a science fiction writer is explicit in the manner in which he redeems himself from having to explain new inventions that human technology, culture nor the mind can grasp. Bonn, in Supiri Kapataya says referring to his new invention "I admit that I can't explain the mechanism of its workings...." The writer not only saves himself from having to explain something so out of the world but also makes the excuse more convincing. He leaves nothing to science fantasy.
But my favourite and undoubtedly one of the most original is the title story, Vismitha Sihina Dakinna (The Fantasy Dreamer). As in all of the other stories he builds up curiosity through the narration, beating around the bush. Unable to suppress my curiosity, taking a sneak peak at the end of the story I was pleasantly surprised to see the familiar name 'Arthur Charles Clarke'! mentor of all science fiction writers Sri Lankan. Actually come to think of it this short story would explain the prophet in Sir Arthur Clarke.
By the time the collection reaches 'Varthawa' (The Report) woven around a journalist's quest for the story of his life, the dialogues have become more realistic and colloquial, shedding the 'written Sinhala'. In a collection of short stories, each story apparently totally different from the other, the only consistency seems to be the writer's obsession with time travel (Except for the fact that all the stories except Adisi Aviya and Vismitha Sihina Dakinna are tragedies). In fact the theme of time travel is so recurrent it almost seems like an infatuation, although he manages to present it in a different light in every short story and thereby justify it. Moreover Nipunajith is well versed in paradoxes of time travel like the grandfather and the bootstrap paradoxes. He seems to have explored whole new possibilities in time travel - for example the mechanism of time travel in 'Varthawa', in which only the spirit or the astral body is allowed to travel back in time, is mind boggling.
I wonder if Nipunajith is a Hollywood movie buff because 'Avisvasaya' (The Distrust), reminds me of 'Final Destination'. Although 'Aviswasaya' is an individual piece of writing in it's own right, the two plots have many similarities. As Death follows those who escaped their fate, in 'Final Destination', in 'Aviswasaya' an invisible force is after the men from the future, determined to stop them from influencing the past at any cost. In 'Aviswasaya' Nipunajith provides a plausible explanation for all the lost civilizations. Reading the epilogue christened the 'Writers epilogue' readers may momentarily confuse the Voice of Mac with the writers'.
A parallel can be drawn between the plot of 'Sihinaya' (The Dream) - where extra terrestrial keep human minds under control by making humans believe that the video game-like dream world they are forced to live in is their reality while their reality is what they have learned to consider as their dreams! - and a few blockbusters including Matrix.
Although his plots share many similarities with blockbusters and best sellers - which maybe pure coincidence after all - he gives the theories new life, with his explicit imagination.
His short story, 'Athmaakramanaya' (Invasion of the spirit) is an apocalyptic story, a typical War-of-the-World scenario. But its extreme attention to detail and the winding plot is evidence of the writers resourceful imagination. It is a perfect antithesis to the last story of the collection. Apparently, Nipunajith has saved the best for last. His 'Vijaya Deshaya' is set in India, written in the perspective of a special Indian task force observing the latest developments in Sri Lanka with envy.
In this ingenious story the writer makes a daring attempt to consider astrology as technology and in this he is a pioneer. He builds curiosity for quite a few pages into the story until he reveals that the secret behind Sri Lankas success is indeed astrology. The story shows distinct originality. Further ahead of the story he switches to Buddhism and then meditation, but is successful in justifying the theory's scientific soundness.
June 17, 2019
Excellent 🤯
March 28, 2025
Beautiful world-building and storytelling. One of the greatest, if not the greatest, Sinhala science fiction works ever written
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews