I came across Yudhanjaya’s writing in the anthology 2054, where i found his very enjoyable Deep Ocean Blues. So having really enjoyed that novella i thought i’d go and have a hunt around and see what else Yudhanjaya has written.
The Slow Sad Suicide of Rohan Wijeratne is, i believe, Yudhanjaya’s first book, albeit just a short story. It tells the tale of a poor little rich kid who has never had to work for anything and has essentially squandered his life. He’s now so fed up with his pointless rich existence he just spends his time trying to kill himself. But he’s so rich his parents had him filled with nanites that heal his every wound and illness, preventing him from ending his own life, no matter how hard he tries.
Then, one day, while driving a tuk tuk, Rohan hears about a space program wanting volunteers to be shot straight into a black hole: even the nanites won’t save him this time.
All in all, this is a really good short story, well written, but it does get lost here and there in the terminology and theories of black holes. But Rohan is also completely lost with all the science of it, his nanites stopped working after 30 years in cryo-sleep to get to the black hole and he’s lost a lot of his intelligence. Essentially, being baffled by all the science nonsense puts you right in the mind of Rohan as he plummets into the abyss. Have fun!
Yudhanjaya’s next book is Numbercaste, which i shall get around to reading at some point in the future.
