Map of Naruto-world

About myself:

I'm a SF enthusiast. I read a lot, I hope to become a published novelist someday, I'm very opinionated and I love my wife. That last part is obviously the most important of all.

I got into reading fanfiction more than a decade back when my dad refused to spend even more money every month on books and I was bored. I got hooked to Ranma 1/2 fanfiction without ever having watched the series or read the manga (In theory, I had a 56kbps dialup connection, but in those days, you were lucky to get 20kbps throughput in India.) I even wrote fanfiction for a while. The story is mostly forgotten in the Ranma fanfiction community now. Good thing, because knowing the things I do now, I'm ashamed of my efforts back then.

About a couple of years back, after being prodded for years by my friends to read Naruto, I finally sat down to find out what the anime was about. I was hooked from episode one. I spent sometime reading fanfiction, but while there are some good Naruto fanfics out there - amidst a lot of crap - they weren't entirely to my taste. I started interacting with a handful of writers and then I started writing fanfiction again. The stories posted under this profile are the end result of my endeavors. I'll leave it to you, the reader, to judge their quality.

I have no preference for any "romantic shipping." I have found a tendency among Naruto fans to hate one character or the other (Sasuke, Sakura, Kakashi, Danzo, etc.) I don't. I love Naruto for he's the hero, but other than that, my feelings towards the characters are mostly positive. They each have a role to play in the story. For this reason, I don't like character bashing. I can tolerate a little of it, but go past a point and you're liable to lose me as a reader. I prefer that the stories I read are realistic. Not all the stories in my favorites list are, but that's why it's a preference. But the way to my heart is good politics, great intrigue, believable characterization, humor and/or a hefty dose of realism.

TBLP started as an experiment to see whether my writing skills had degraded. It is ambitious in the sense there are numerous plot threads with frequent view point changes and I've never attempted anything of this scope before. It's a dedication to one of SF's greatest writers - though we haven't gotten to that part - and it's influenced by Nugar's People's Lie to a certain extent. Certainly, the many and varied, and usually failed attempts at humor in TBLP are quite shameless attempts on my part to rob some of Nugar's magic for my story. I believe PL is influenced in some minor way as well by TBLP, but that's just speculation on my part. It'd be great if it were, though. LOL

As for any other story that I may post under this profile, I'll put up a description when they grow as close to my heart as TBLP has. :)

Replies to reviews:

urfan: Thanks for your kind words and yes, it looks increasingly likely Akatsuki is going to bite the big one in this fight.

aboulhosncc: Thanks for the review! And double thanks for the thousandth review.

Anon: Study the lessons of Greece, Rome and even the modern western world as well as the contrasting example provided by the middle east and africa. Putting the nation above family and clan is definitely better than the other alternatives out there. There is also tyranny of wealth, if your wealthy class is made of feckless reprobates, but you can't compare it to a fundamentally unstable structure like what you see in the narutoverse.

KS: Thanks for your kind words about the story. I'm not a professional writer and no training in war strategy. I have had the fortune to interact with some brilliant military minds, however, and I've learnt a fair bit from them. The strategies and tactics I've depicted are common sense and borrowed from historical examples. The story is close to completion. I'll be sure to self plug my works if they are published. You can be rest assured of that. Meanwhile, keep reading!

Androvidius: Thanks for the review. They hold the rings, which stymies Akatsuki a little. As for the sword, you'll have to wait until the next chapter to learn more.

wtf: Your mind. Wash it with soap. :p