Hello! You have reached the homepage of "Mahabharata Story," a science fiction Mahabharata fanfic by nenena. If you'd like to read, you can start browsing below.

(Mahabharata Story Table of Contents) // The meaty meat.

(A ~ Z Glossary) // Handy when you're dealing with a cast of hundreds.

(Bibliography and Resources) // To give credit where it's due.

( A Brief FAQ for the Curious and Confused. ) // Behind the cut.

The table of contents, for your reading pleasure.




PART ONE -- BEGINNING

Prologue: Worlds that Were
Chapter One: Hastinapura
Interlude: Karna
Chapter Two: Partings
Interlude: Yuyutsu
Chapter Three: The Gift
Interlude: Drona
Chapter Four: Rose
Interlude: Shalya
Chapter Five: The Contest
Interlude: Karna II
Chapter Six: Dakshina
Interlude: Bhisma
Chapter Seven: Divided
Interlude: Shakuni
Chapter Eight: Night of the Gandharvas
Interlude: Kritavarma
Chapter Nine: Panchala
Interlude: Rukmaratha
Chapter Ten: Draupadi
Interlude: Shakuni II
Chapter Eleven: Dice
Interlude: Ashwatthama
Chapter Twelve: Departure


PART TWO -- EXILE

[coming soon]


PART THREE -- WAR

[coming soon]


PART FOUR -- ENDING

[coming soon]

VALID THROUGH: "Chapter Ten: Draupadi."
Last glossary update: June 23rd, 2009.

Note: This glossary may sometimes be current BEYOND the currently published chapters. It may contain minor spoilers, but never anything major.

( Behind the cut: A ~ Z Glossary of characters, places, and terms. )

Coming eventually in this sticky post: A complete list of every text, website, and person that I've consulted while researching this fic.

Well, I managed to keep my promise. Also, this month goldenflames deserves an extra-special THANK YOU for beta-ing Chapter Ten on the night before she left for a vacation in Cambodia. Now that's dedication. :) Thank you!!!

Anyway, the fic.

Interlude: Rukmaratha

Chapter Ten: Draupadi

Aaaaaand with that, I'm going to be going on hiatus until September. I have to move twice this summer, once across the Pacific Ocean and then once more again across the United States, in addition to starting grad school and all sorts of other stressful things. I'm also going to take some time in July to work some more on writing the exile part, because I'm not as far ahead on those chapters as I would like to be.

Anyway, thank you all for your continued support and words of encouragement. We will be back in September with a new update. And, as always, thank you for reading!

I'm not dead. I'm just editing. I feel like I broke through the worst of my revision block last week, so. Yay!

Right now I'm halfway through a deep edit on part 20/chapter 10.

I swear I will make good on that promise to pull off a double-update before the end of the month!

Okay, so... The reason that there hasn't been an update for May yet is that I've gotten stuck during the editing process. I can't quite figure out how to untangle this knot of a scene that desperately needs a re-write, but that so far I haven't been able to "fix" in anything remotely approaching a satisfying way.

But I'm working on it.

My goal now is to keep hammering away at that damn scene until it works, and then, to make up for the delay, hopefully post a double-update in June.

My apologies to anyone who's actually been waiting for the next chapter. ^^;;

Chapter Nine: Panchala

April is going to be an insanely busy month for me, so... Here's April's update, a few days early.

Enjoy!

Interlude: Kritavarma

Very very short update, sorry.

But next month's update will be another megachapter. ;)

Interlude: Shakuni
Chapter Eight: Night of the Gandharvas

Enjoy!

First! Thank you, thank you, thank you so much to everyone who has commented on the story so far. And yes, that includes those of you who have commented begging for updates - it lights the fire under my ass and feeds my ego. ^____^

Second! Here's the deal. I have two chapters that I want to post soonish. Unfortunately, I seem to be butting my head against something even deadlier than writer's block: Editor's block. Blaaaaargh. There is a section in the next chapter that requires major huge revision, and I'm really struggling with it right now. But I am working on it.

In happier news, this month I've made significant progress writing "ahead" (in the exile portion of the story), so yay go me. There's still about a year's worth of material already drafted at this point. And I'm still working, every month, on writing more.

This has been your friendly neighborhood update for January. Thank you again for all of your support, and I'm sorry about the delay.

Chapter Seven: Divided

(Icon is very relevant, LOL.)

Hope you enjoy this chapter!

And that's it until after the holiday season. I will try to get another update ready before the end of January. But no promises, though; I'm doing a lot of traveling over the next few weeks.

But anyway, thanks for reading, and for all of you amazing and encouraging comments, as always!

Interlude: Bhisma

I know. It's short. But don't worry. A much, much longer section has already been prepped for a December update. Look forward to it!

Chapter Six: Dakshina

I'm on a new computer now, with a brand new copy of Microsoft Word. Unfortunately, the Word spellchecker has decided to freeze and crash every single time that it encounters "Drupada" in the text that I'm editing. Every. Single. Time.

Guess how much it sucked to edit this chapter.

Well, September came and went, and my intended update did not happen. I got slammed by Real Life obligations left and right, including a couple festivals in my school/village, a professional conference at which I'm paneling, a bunch of emergency house repairs, a bucketload of grad school applications, having to re-teach myself all of the math that I ever learned in preparation for the GRE in three weeks... So. Um. Yeah.

The next chapter has not even been sent to be beta'd, yet.

I apologize for keeping my few readers waiting, and I promise to try my best to double-update sometime in October.

This one gets the "badass Duryodhana" icon.

Interlude: Shalya
Chapter Five: The Contest
Interlude: Karna II

Consider this a triple-update for June, July, and August. I need to spend the rest of the summer writing "ahead" in the exile part.

Anyway, enjoy!

Chapter Four: Rose

I'm still working working ahead of one of my betas here, so forgive me for the slow pace.

Anyway, new chapter! If you squint you'll see the first (unnamed) references to an extremely important character whom we'll meet again during the exile part of the story. ;)

Oh wow, I have readers! Which means that I feel pressure to actually update. So, here you go.

Part Six

Part Seven

Su hasn't had a chance to look over these yet, so it's likely that I'll revise them at some future date. But thank you - all two of you - who have been waiting for the next chapters, and for giving me some awesome feedback!

In lieu of posting new chapters (sorry!), I've uploaded the revised versions of chapters 1 through 5. The revisions are a result of my own continuity checks, consultation with steelehearts, and me wanting to change things to get them more in line with later (still unpublished) chapters.

PS - Easy trivia question time. There is exactly one basic food ingredient mentioned in the fic so far that was NOT present when and where the original Mahabharata took place. Hint: It was likely invented in the Mahabharata era, but on the opposite side of the globe.

Okay, it looks like I'm going to go yet another week without uploading Part 7. The reason is that I'm stuck with a massive, er, not "writer's block" per se, but rather editor's block on Part 8. My draft of Part 8 still requires some massive revisions, and for the past two weeks I just haven't been able to do it. And I don't want to post Part 7 until I have Part 8 neatly revised and forwarded to my betas. Sorry, that's just how my brain works. I like to be working a bit ahead of myself.

Thanks for your patience, all two of you who are reading this. ;)