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.

Mostly Enjoyable

So far two reviews precede this one. Interestingly, I must agree with both. I strongly advise the reader who got through only the first 45 minutes of the book to go back to where they stopped and restart listening. My experience was exactly the same and I nearly stopped listening at the same point. When the first woman's voice I heard sounded like Mini Mouse it was fingernails on a blackboard. When I realized that women played significant roles in the book, and that each was likely to sound like a cousin to Mini, I really had to work to keep going. Thankfully, the thought of wasting a credit kept me struggling and I did in fact finish the book.

I don't know what happened but about an hour into my listen, the female voices became less of an issue and the writing took over. I am glad it did. In the end, I found the book to be one of the better Audible purchases I have made. I have not listened to any of the "Honor Harrington" series but I will now. I did read the "March" series and thoroughly enjoyed it. I cannot say this book is better but it is most certainly on the same plane. Now, I must go back and select my next listen. Whichever I choose, I hope it can match up in terms of enjoyment and that perhaps Micky will have called Mini home.

Suggestions will be appreciated.

i couldnt finish and I really want to

I was used to listening to Ms. Johnson doing Honor stories. this narrator ruined for me the first time he did a female voice. I never got passed the first few minuets. I would gladly buy this title again if you got Ms. Johnson to read it.

Great Book

Great Book but a bad narrator. The narrator is just not right for this book.

Narration too much a departure

The narration was so misaligned from other Weber audiobooks, that I would not purchase in audiobook format, but would instead read in print or Kindel.

Obviously Jay Snyder is a highly trained professional voice, but his unexpected shift to a British accent for everyone in the Star Kingdom of Manticore, including Honor, threw me. I'd enjoyed Weber's style in the prolog, and tried to deal with the too slick accent. The Admiral Harrington rendition in the first chapter reminded me of a Saturday Night Live spoof of Margaret Thatcher! It was too much, I had to forgo the listen after just 20 minutes. I could not enjoy hearing 30 hours of out of character renditions.

While I heard all of Allyson Johnson's reads, I've listened to others read Weber's books. It's not that my listening is inflexible, or that I'm an Anglophobe. It's that the performance is so mismatched, and overplayed that it ruined my enjoyment of the story.

I wish I could preview narration, but I've not made that feature work on my IPAD.

This is my last Jay Snyder reads.

What did you like best about The Shadow of Saganami? What did you like least?

Jay Snyder sounds like an sports announcer not a book narrator, his male voices are bad and his female voices are horrible enough to make me regret not just finding a TTS copy from the library of congress.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Jay Snyder?

Anyone who can do female voices and not sound like a WWE sports broadcaster.

Stephen Briggs is my all time favorite narrator.

Well done

Well done, lived up too other honor books. I look forward too my next book.

Good Story, Bad Narrator

Would you listen to The Shadow of Saganami again? Why?

the Story is very good, but Jay's presentation of the women characters left much to be desired. Space women for he most part would have to have feminine but strong tonal qualities. More like the person that des the Honor series.

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Shadow of Saganami?

Finding out what went on behind the Honor series. Getting more insite on Mesa and the plotting behind them.

What didn’t you like about Jay Snyder’s performance?

Women weak sounding.

Good but....

The choice of performer is questionable in my opinion or maybe I'm just spoiled by the woman who reads the main series. In any event the performer's female voices are cringe worthy. They come across as comedic caricatures.

The Narrator should NEVER do another book

The story is great! Yeh characters engaging and interesting. But this audiobook is one of the worse because of the narrator’s forced falsetto voice... I literally could not bare to hear him read any of the female parts. Jay Stryker should NEVER read female lines EVER EVER EVER again!

Good book, but bad female voices

How did the narrator detract from the book?

This is a good story but the narration is not good, all the young female characters sound like startled leprechauns.

Any additional comments?

If you enjoyed the other honourverse books I would recommend it though, despite the narrator.