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The Saga of Tanya the Evil Light Novel #13
The Saga of Tanya the Evil, Vol. 13 (light novel): Dum Spiro, Spero: Part 1 (The Saga of Tanya the Evil
The Federation’s Offensive—Rising Dawn. The Federation has been steadily preparing itself for the decisive battle. As the moment of truth rapidly approaches, the Empire which has long been on the offensive remains unaware of the threat. In these dire circumstances, only one person has noticed where everything is Tanya. Zettour also refuses to simply watch and begins his grand plan to deceive the world. In the end, the one who will pull the trigger on this operation is a monster in the guise of a young girl...
383 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 30, 2023
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
July 23, 2025
The East foretells the end. January has arrived, and the cold and barren land hearkens for peace ahead of the coming mud season. By springtime or early summer, analysts presume, the Federation and the Empire will sort out these last, final, flickering flames of war.
But presumptions forged in the tepid heat of an unstable conflict yield unpredictable (unreliable) observations. Did the Empire's accomplishments in the Kingdom of Ildoa procure enough time and resources to stave the military's starvation? Are General Zettour's kind smiles and stern speeches to courtly dignitaries and high-ranking nobles too aged to be believed? And will the Federation's own ambitions, quailing no less smoothly than its rival's, be reduced to one final push to retake the East? The East foretells the war's end, but as for what variables constitute who fails and who survives, Tanya is stuck maneuvering what few puzzle pieces she has left, and time is running out ("In war, there is no luxury more hateful than the squandering of time," page 190).
THE SAGA OF TANYA THE EVIL v13 is an excellent, deep-lore military journal. As much as one wishes to whine about the number of intervening novels the author penned to reach this apex of war literature, the truth is that without a dozen dense novels with which one might grind out such details, the author could not have reached such a summit. The current novel is slow-paced, contemplative, respects its POV characters, and doesn't hesitate to relish in the conflicts sown by individual characters' weaknesses.
This novel takes its time prying apart each character's insecurities and scrutinizing the manifold sources of those insecurities. Narratively, this means exposing Counselor Conrad (of the Foreign Office), General Zettour, Tanya, and other characters to high-stress, high-consequence, morally combustible situations, then sequestering them in the immediate aftermath and observing these characters, in total isolation, as they rationalize (or contest) the truth of their scrape with reality. For readers, this means an array of context-driven scenarios (e.g., palace tea party, kerfuffle among royalty, comms breakdowns) push the novel's characters to their limit, after which the author isolates these characters and pours out anywhere from six to a dozen pages of tough, earnest, pure soliloquized conversation. Readers who crave dense political-science discourse will definitely get their fix.
Counselor Conrad, for example, attends a cheesy New Year's party in the capital. He offers the usual hand-shaking, sideways smiles, and promises of victory, despite his more practical grasp of the war situation. But a curious prompt from a serious but otherwise useless member of the nobility puts the officer off his game. The nobleman asks a simple question: "Who will follow after General Zettour?" (page 32). But what readers receive is an impressive, if wholly dangerous logical experiment in which the two men, and later, Counselor Conrad alone, debate the mechanics of an institution overly reliant on its functionaries.
Conrad feels like an unworkable character, because his role is so small and his influence is so minor, but the man stumbles into a key plot point that Zettour later affirms through a soliloquy of his own: The general is no longer a cog in the machine, the general is the machine itself. And if the machine (the institution) should fall, then any and all survivors are obliged to scrap everything associated with it and rebuild anew. This is "the extremity of war" (page 102), in which everyone knows the end is near and everyone is increasingly sensitive to the consequences thereof. It is no coincidence that Zettour vouches to become "a symbol to be overthrown" (page 45).
A more prominent example of the author exposing/stressing characters and then isolating them to operationalize the truth occurs in the novel's climax, which finds Tanya as she contemplates how to respond to and survive a brash offensive from the Federation. Repeated reconnaissance reveals awkward and indifferent results, but Tanya's instincts are on high alert. The Federation is tossing out inexpert aerial mages to defend distant posts, the Federation is wielding experimental mechanized mage regiments (i.e., tank desant; combined arms tactics), and so forth. The East is supposed to be quiet for the next four to six months, as both sides reconstitute their forces, but this is war, and in times of war, silence only precedes chaos. And in chaos, survival is never guaranteed.
As such, Tanya debates with herself for a full 16 pages. It's a wild ride, as the young soldier must negotiate the Federation's two-wave assault across a 100-km front; rationalize the possibility of leadership being terrorized, paralyzed, or decapitated; and manifest a means of enduring (or fighting back) that will see the Salamander Kampfgruppe, initially sent to the East as a "strategic reserves" outfit, as a fighting force still capable of doing the Empire's dirty work. Tanya is not opposed to bending the rules if it means witnessing the next day's dawn, but the extent to which she and her fellow officers must navigate the Empire's impending doom means asking difficult questions of seasoned soldiers who may not be ready to learn from defeat:
"In the back of my overheated brain, the possibility of escaping gruesome annihilation has become real. Like a beacon of light. With this shining beam of light in my hand, I can at last confront the encroaching despair." (Tanya, page 261)
Notably, one ponders more openly how the inevitable end of the war will affect the young soldier. The fate of General Zettour is rather obvious at this point, but what about Lieutenant Colonel Tanya von Degurechaff? The author's varying, numerous, and continued hints that all paperwork, reports, and evidence of "Fairy 01" having been scrubbed feels increasingly ominous. If Zettour props himself up as a necessary sacrifice, then what does that make Tanya?
THE SAGA OF TANYA THE EVIL v13 is a phenomenal read, but only for the right reader. The author's tendency to delay action in favor of studied, extensive discourse on war tactics and the author's preference to assess and value a character's reactions to difficult decisions over these characters' actual decision-making may put off readers who lust for more vibrant narration. Fortunately, at this point in the light-novel series, the author has assembled a novel structure that truly befits the story being told. This 285-page novel has only a handful of meaningful POV characters, but each of them desperately clings to the page as if their lives depended on it.
Sadly, the publisher's quality of (production) work has slipped significantly. This novel is another great title among recent releases for which poor quality-assurance checking and proofreading are a scar on an otherwise monumental translation effort. Errors in the current novel include an embarrassingly impressive array of missing words, missing paragraph breaks, improper punctuation, and errant capitalization. It's really bad. Whether due to reduced production resources, managerial oversight, or something else, one finds in the current novel another sad example of worthy content not receiving the care the product (or its author) so eminently deserve.
But presumptions forged in the tepid heat of an unstable conflict yield unpredictable (unreliable) observations. Did the Empire's accomplishments in the Kingdom of Ildoa procure enough time and resources to stave the military's starvation? Are General Zettour's kind smiles and stern speeches to courtly dignitaries and high-ranking nobles too aged to be believed? And will the Federation's own ambitions, quailing no less smoothly than its rival's, be reduced to one final push to retake the East? The East foretells the war's end, but as for what variables constitute who fails and who survives, Tanya is stuck maneuvering what few puzzle pieces she has left, and time is running out ("In war, there is no luxury more hateful than the squandering of time," page 190).
THE SAGA OF TANYA THE EVIL v13 is an excellent, deep-lore military journal. As much as one wishes to whine about the number of intervening novels the author penned to reach this apex of war literature, the truth is that without a dozen dense novels with which one might grind out such details, the author could not have reached such a summit. The current novel is slow-paced, contemplative, respects its POV characters, and doesn't hesitate to relish in the conflicts sown by individual characters' weaknesses.
This novel takes its time prying apart each character's insecurities and scrutinizing the manifold sources of those insecurities. Narratively, this means exposing Counselor Conrad (of the Foreign Office), General Zettour, Tanya, and other characters to high-stress, high-consequence, morally combustible situations, then sequestering them in the immediate aftermath and observing these characters, in total isolation, as they rationalize (or contest) the truth of their scrape with reality. For readers, this means an array of context-driven scenarios (e.g., palace tea party, kerfuffle among royalty, comms breakdowns) push the novel's characters to their limit, after which the author isolates these characters and pours out anywhere from six to a dozen pages of tough, earnest, pure soliloquized conversation. Readers who crave dense political-science discourse will definitely get their fix.
Counselor Conrad, for example, attends a cheesy New Year's party in the capital. He offers the usual hand-shaking, sideways smiles, and promises of victory, despite his more practical grasp of the war situation. But a curious prompt from a serious but otherwise useless member of the nobility puts the officer off his game. The nobleman asks a simple question: "Who will follow after General Zettour?" (page 32). But what readers receive is an impressive, if wholly dangerous logical experiment in which the two men, and later, Counselor Conrad alone, debate the mechanics of an institution overly reliant on its functionaries.
Conrad feels like an unworkable character, because his role is so small and his influence is so minor, but the man stumbles into a key plot point that Zettour later affirms through a soliloquy of his own: The general is no longer a cog in the machine, the general is the machine itself. And if the machine (the institution) should fall, then any and all survivors are obliged to scrap everything associated with it and rebuild anew. This is "the extremity of war" (page 102), in which everyone knows the end is near and everyone is increasingly sensitive to the consequences thereof. It is no coincidence that Zettour vouches to become "a symbol to be overthrown" (page 45).
A more prominent example of the author exposing/stressing characters and then isolating them to operationalize the truth occurs in the novel's climax, which finds Tanya as she contemplates how to respond to and survive a brash offensive from the Federation. Repeated reconnaissance reveals awkward and indifferent results, but Tanya's instincts are on high alert. The Federation is tossing out inexpert aerial mages to defend distant posts, the Federation is wielding experimental mechanized mage regiments (i.e., tank desant; combined arms tactics), and so forth. The East is supposed to be quiet for the next four to six months, as both sides reconstitute their forces, but this is war, and in times of war, silence only precedes chaos. And in chaos, survival is never guaranteed.
As such, Tanya debates with herself for a full 16 pages. It's a wild ride, as the young soldier must negotiate the Federation's two-wave assault across a 100-km front; rationalize the possibility of leadership being terrorized, paralyzed, or decapitated; and manifest a means of enduring (or fighting back) that will see the Salamander Kampfgruppe, initially sent to the East as a "strategic reserves" outfit, as a fighting force still capable of doing the Empire's dirty work. Tanya is not opposed to bending the rules if it means witnessing the next day's dawn, but the extent to which she and her fellow officers must navigate the Empire's impending doom means asking difficult questions of seasoned soldiers who may not be ready to learn from defeat:
"In the back of my overheated brain, the possibility of escaping gruesome annihilation has become real. Like a beacon of light. With this shining beam of light in my hand, I can at last confront the encroaching despair." (Tanya, page 261)
Notably, one ponders more openly how the inevitable end of the war will affect the young soldier. The fate of General Zettour is rather obvious at this point, but what about Lieutenant Colonel Tanya von Degurechaff? The author's varying, numerous, and continued hints that all paperwork, reports, and evidence of "Fairy 01" having been scrubbed feels increasingly ominous. If Zettour props himself up as a necessary sacrifice, then what does that make Tanya?
THE SAGA OF TANYA THE EVIL v13 is a phenomenal read, but only for the right reader. The author's tendency to delay action in favor of studied, extensive discourse on war tactics and the author's preference to assess and value a character's reactions to difficult decisions over these characters' actual decision-making may put off readers who lust for more vibrant narration. Fortunately, at this point in the light-novel series, the author has assembled a novel structure that truly befits the story being told. This 285-page novel has only a handful of meaningful POV characters, but each of them desperately clings to the page as if their lives depended on it.
Sadly, the publisher's quality of (production) work has slipped significantly. This novel is another great title among recent releases for which poor quality-assurance checking and proofreading are a scar on an otherwise monumental translation effort. Errors in the current novel include an embarrassingly impressive array of missing words, missing paragraph breaks, improper punctuation, and errant capitalization. It's really bad. Whether due to reduced production resources, managerial oversight, or something else, one finds in the current novel another sad example of worthy content not receiving the care the product (or its author) so eminently deserve.
September 26, 2025
Wow, what an ending.
The tension and conflict in the last pages of the book is just cinema.
But also in general this volume includes many interesting story points. It shines a lot of focus on Tanya, which is really nice, as some novels were neglecting her somewhat.
There is still the issue of extreme repetition in elaborating points in internal monologues or descriptions of the world state, but I feel that it got better this time.
Perhaps I would even call this volume one of the best in this series.
The tension and conflict in the last pages of the book is just cinema.
But also in general this volume includes many interesting story points. It shines a lot of focus on Tanya, which is really nice, as some novels were neglecting her somewhat.
There is still the issue of extreme repetition in elaborating points in internal monologues or descriptions of the world state, but I feel that it got better this time.
Perhaps I would even call this volume one of the best in this series.
April 11, 2025
TANYA THE GOAT IS SO BACKKKKKKKKK
FINALLY we get to see the nearing end of the empire and how Tanya plans to secure her retirement lolololol.
One of the most entertaining entries in the series by far only rivaled by the first book by its content. I haven’t been this hyped to read the next book since I started this series. Can’t wait for the next installment and I hope to see Being X again…
5/5
FINALLY we get to see the nearing end of the empire and how Tanya plans to secure her retirement lolololol.
One of the most entertaining entries in the series by far only rivaled by the first book by its content. I haven’t been this hyped to read the next book since I started this series. Can’t wait for the next installment and I hope to see Being X again…
5/5
February 1, 2025
Enjoyed it but very heavily will she won't she.
December 31, 2024
Excellent, can't wait for part 2
December 24, 2024
Enjoyable but the translation in places left a lot to be desired. Wrong words being used (don't instead of doubt, for example) and grammatical errors that makes it hard to figure out if someone is speaking or thinking at times, and there seemed to be times where things were repeated a few times over, but in different ways.
As I said, I put it to translation errors, and the book was enjoyable otherwise. Looking forward to the next in series.
As I said, I put it to translation errors, and the book was enjoyable otherwise. Looking forward to the next in series.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews