The Shadow of Saganami

By: David Weber

Narrated by: Jay Snyder

Length: 30 hrs and 53 mins

Publisher's summary

The Star Kingdom has a new generation of officers! And this elite group hand-picked and trained by Honor Harrington herself is going to be needed immediately, as their first assignment turns out to be more dangerous than anyone expected.

What was supposed to be a quiet outpost, far from the blazing conflict between the Star Kingdom of Manticore and the People's Republic of Haven has actually been targeted by an unholy alliance between the slaveholders of Manpower, the rival star kingdoms of Mesa and Monica, and the bureaucrats of the Solarian League.

The alliance stands to benefit if the Havenites defeat Manticore, and are preparing for a surprise attack from the rear to divide Manticore's forces, which are already strained nearly to their limits. With their captain, the young Manticoran officers will risk their careers, if not their lives, on an unauthorized mission to expose and counter the threat to their Star Kingdom. Follow their journey as they show what they're made of.

New York Times best-selling author David Weber begins a new series that will be a must-buy for the hundreds of thousands of Honor Harrington fans.

©2005 David Weber (P)2009 Audible, Inc.

Really good story line. Some minor flaws.

If you could sum up The Shadow of Saganami in three words, what would they be?

Story line is same as other authors but still a good listen. I question the reason for making the Masons ( Masonic body ) part of the bad guys. Can't help but wonder if he "David Weber " is anti mason minded? I hope not but will watch his future novels to see if this point continues.

What other book might you compare The Shadow of Saganami to and why?

Several Space Military books all run about the same story line. Several use x and xx rated sections which detracts from the story line.

Have you listened to any of Jay Snyder’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

He's really good and gives a better than average performance here.

Any additional comments?

This one is easy to follow and does not jump around to much.

terrible reader

female voices are horrific, like nails on a chalkboard. don't read for female centric books!

Good book But Jay can't Sing

David ...I can say I've never been disappointed with the Honor books. if you get the chance Get them all. Worth the credits

Jay... What to say about Jay...NEVER, NEVER, EVER try and do female voices again. This book would have been so much more enjoyable if a woman would have done the female parts. I almost gave up on it after about 10 min. Because of them. I finely was able to plow on by putting the speed up to 1.5. You do kinda get used to them (Ok... truth is your ears kind go numb) after the first part. Male voices where done well and I didn't catch to many wrong words. Listen to the sample (wish i would have) if you can't stand the narrators female voices Get the paperback.

Absolutely brilliant.

Yet another absolutely amazing space opera from David Weber. Thank goodness the next book in the series is already written.

Nearly Perfect

The Shadow of Saganami is one of those "In The Middle" stories that David Weber seems to enjoy tossing into the Honor Harrington Universe. Although it is a very, very exciting stand alone novel, which introduces many new characters, its primary purpose seems to be to back fill some of the missing facts in the primary story lines of the main Honor Harrington series, and to setup some of the events which will be developed more fully in the stories "At all Costs" and "Storm from the Shadows."

Jay Snyder, in my opinion, should have been the primary reader for the entire Honor Harrington series. He can do a full range of both male and female voices and is masterful at characterization. He understands the story lines and works very hard to make it real for the listener.

The only problems that I have with the audio series is not with Snyder's reading, but with the Producers and Directors at Audible Frontiers, who don't seem to have read the series before they started recording it. They still have the readers pronouncing "Manticoran" as Man-TIC-o-ren. Since the folks come from "Manticor" it is very unlikely that the TIC would be emphasized in the possessive unless one managed to pronounce "Manticor" as Man-TIC-or!

Also, since the men and women from the planet "Grayson" are highly religions, have the planet wide pass time of playing "Baseball" and all of their music is "Country and Western" it is equally unlikely that they would have British Accents. I would be more inclined to speculate that they would have an accent closer to one found in the Eastern United States, say, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia or South Carolina. Of course, one would have to READ THE SERIES to know that ahead of time. Audible Frontiers doesn't seem to have done its homework quite a few areas.

I give David Weber's story 5 stars, The reader, Jay Snyder, 5 stars and Audible Frontiers 1 star.

Poor Narration

While the base narration is fine, the voices used for female characters was horrible, distracted quite a bit from the enjoyment of the book. I would love to see this re-read by Allyson Johnson who did the mainline series.

As with the rest of the Honor books the story was very good. Not quite the same level as the mainline series but very good nonetheless.

The Shadow of Saganami

I had completed all the Harrington series books before starting on the sub-series book. I wish I had read/listen to this book before I had read "At All Cost" and "Mission of Honor". The Shadow of Saganami apparently fits into the time line somewhere in the "At All Cost" story line. The narrator was not Jay Snyder but Kevin Parasal he just can not do women voices not all women have a soprano voice. Over all great story lots of battle scenes, espionage, political intrigue to keep me up all night and not get anything done all day.

It's the falsetto

Mr Snyder has a pleasant voice when speaking for male characters but the falsetto he uses for the female character's parts is jarring and rather hoakey. It's interesting that when Allyson Johnson does male voices for the HH series male characters it's not so weird sounding. The Book is awesome but this audio version is hard to listen to.

lost the plot with tech details

I love the Honor books and also the 'We Few' series. My fav books of all time are 'Path of the Fury' and "The Apocalypse Troll".
Sadly, though i did manage to finish it, I was lost and disappointing.

Liked the book just fine but.....

As much as I love David Weber's World, I have to say that although Jay Snyder does a great job with the male voices, I liken his female voices to The Brothers Gibb when they struggled into tight pants and re-named them selves The Bee Gee's! I'm sorry Jay but, you can't use a falsetto on all the female voices and get away with it. Your female voices made me flinch every time I heard one.