Page 45 Review by Jonathan
"You will be born into an unscientific world...
"...as a woman...
"... come to know war...
"... and be driven to your limits!!!"
No, not a real-life story, but a marvellously complicated piece of fantasy with a couple of salient points to make. But mainly just madcap mayhem.
An obnoxious Japanese salaryman manages to get pushed under a train by someone he's just taken great delight in making redundant and finds himself, to his surprise, getting admonished by what appears to be God. Being the sort of irritating smartarse he is, he starts talking back to said deity, and then to his even greater shock, gets told he's going to be reincarnated as a female child soldier in a war torn alternate version of Europe.
Now, Tanya, as he subsequently becomes, does have some magical military abilities, but it's clearly no picnic of a life for a nine year old. However, applying the same sort of ruthless Machiavellian stratagems and ruthless approach to his, sorry her, new career, as he did to his carving through the rank and file and up the greasy corporate pole, she soon becomes a lauded, decorated war hero with several bloody victories to her name at the front. Despite the fact that what she's actually trying to do is simply get a safe posting behind the lines. It's almost like someone has got it in for her...
Meanwhile, it turns out there are several Gods, of all the flavours you would expect. Who are bickering and tinkering away with their various creations behind the scenes, playing games with each other and just generally abusing their omnipotence.
Where it's all going I have absolutely no idea, but it's as fun as it sounds daft. Which is very and completely, respectively.
