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.

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.

Horrible narrator

David Weber has many female characters in his books, but Jay Snyder makes them all sound like Monty Python characters.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

Mixed emotions

I read this book when it was first published and truly enjoyed it. I was ecstatic when it was available here. I had my first letdown when the reader hit his first female voice. I had to stop working to see if I had inadvertently switched to a Monty Python recording. Most of the women in the book are made to sound as if they'd jumped right out of a Monty Python skit.
Don't get me wrong, the reader is truly talented for his male voice range, he should either put a lot of work on the female voices he does, or just quit trying to sound female. Other readers can do it, and for someone of his talents otherwise, it might be the best bet.
My other problem with the book has already been mentioned: the pronunciation of "Manitcoran." Apparently, I'm going to have to endure this for any of the "Honorverse" books that come out.
The book easily rates 5 stars. This is Weber at his best with complex plots and characters from all over the galaxy conspiring to bring harm to the star kingdom. I had to knock off 1 star for the reader. After listening long enough, you can get used to the cringe-inducing female voices and just enjoy the story.

Monty Python Voices

The content might be great, but.... I can't get past the narrator's "female" voice. Every time I hear it, I think of one of the Monty Python group doing their high screechy female voices... Too distracting to listen to.

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.

Where has Alyson gone?

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

OK well i love David Weber books and stories so never likely to get less than 5 stars from me. This is no different.
However Having read them all several times before my sight failed i was wary of trying to listen to them. Alyson Johnson's superb voice acting and consistent voicing over several books though converted me. I bought them all.
Then i listened to this one. WHERE IS ALYSON? Jay is a fine reader and good at characterization.. but his voice is too deep to convincingly voice girls The falsetto's grate. Weber's books have far too many girls vital to the plots for such a deep voiced man to voice... and its a problem after hearing Alyson's brilliant convincing different accents for Honor .. Elizabeth...Michelle and then suddenly hear them all sounding like Danny LaRue or Dame Edna
I have other books read by Jay with mainly male characters.. and he is very very good. For Webers books he is a mistake.

Did Jay Snyder do a good job differentiating each of the characters? How?

see above voice too deep for the females

Terrible narration, adequate story

Would you try another book written by David Weber or narrated by Jay Snyder?

I love David Weber's Honorverse, having discovered it whilst an expat in the USA back in 1999. I love the series and was trying to read/ listen to them all in sequence. I was a little thrown by The Shadow of Saganami, as I wasn't sure where it fit into the sequence of novels.

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

It's a spin off, that if you're an absolute completest should be listened to between 'War of Honor' and 'At all Costs', but you can safely ignore it. In many ways I would suggest that you do. The story is manageable but the narration is abysmal.

Would you be willing to try another one of Jay Snyder’s performances?

No. He is awful. His basic narrators voice is bearable, but he adopts such a hideous variety of bad comedy accents for every minor character that I though for a while that this was a spoof version. In particular his helium voiced female characters that come straight from Monty Python (where they are never intended to be taken seriously). What was wrong with Alyson Johnson? In a series with a strong female lead, many principle female characters and heavily stressed gender equality she did very well. Why replace her with this dopey caricaturist with gruff corsair male captains and squeaky breathless female caricatures?

Did The Shadow of Saganami inspire you to do anything?

Yes, it inspired me to see what other books Alyson Johnson might have read and to stop buying the extended works of David Weber

Any additional comments?

Please never hire Jay Snyder to narrate any more of my beloved book series.

Great book if you like the Honour Harrington serie

strongly recommend reading this in chronological order (check on wikipedia where it sits). the performance is good and the story is interesting.

Narrator ruined this for me

I found the Honorverse really recently and raced through he main books. Finding the Saganami series I was pleased and immediately started 'listening'. Perhaps I have been spoiled by the excellent voice acting in the main series but I have listened to many books and many narrators/voice actors. I'm not sure whether this narrator is just not up to the job of doing women's voices or if it is a particularly bad match between narrator and the requirements of the book. I am so disappointed I won't be able to listen to the other Saganami series especially the one about Mike. I do wish authors would listen more closely to their narrators when they choose them... honestly its like I'm listening to a dame at a panto.

Jay is a great narrator

Anyone who complains about his performance hasn't gone through one of the books narrated by Peter. Exceptional story as always from David Weber I really like this Honorverse.. I think I will keep it.

Inclined to agree

Great story, but much inclined to agree with the criticisms of the narrator's attempts at female voices - many of them sounded more like children than women.

Great story again

David Weber does it again kept me enthralled all the way to the end. Looking forward to the next book.