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The Shadow of Saganami (2004)

by David Weber

Other authors: See the other authors section.

Series: Honorverse: Saganami Island (1), Saganami (Kniha 1), Honor Harrington Universe (20)

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
1,2721514,946 (3.95)13
The Star Kingdom of Manticore is once again at war with the Republic of Haven after a stunning sneak attack. The graduating class from Saganami Island, the Royal Manticoran Navy's academy, are going straight from the classroom to the blazing reality of all-out war--except for the midshipmen assigned to the heavy cruiser HMS Hexapuma, that is. They're being assigned to the Talbott Cluster, a backwater far from the battle front. With a captain who may have seen too much of war and a station commander who isn't precisely noted for his brilliant and insightful command style, it isn't exactly what the students of Honor Harrington expected. But things aren't as simple--or tranquil--as they appear. Pirates, terrorists, genetic slavers, smuggled weapons, long-standing personal hatreds, and a vicious alliance of corporate greed, bureaucratic arrogance, and a corrupt local star nation with a powerful fleet, are all coming together, and only Hexapuma, her war-weary captain, and Honor Harrington's students stand in the path. They have only one thing to support and guide them: the tradition of Saganami. The tradition that sometimes a Queen's officer's duty is to face impossible odds...and die fighting.… (more)
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» See also 13 mentions

Showing 1-5 of 15 (next | show all)
I have to say that this book was a disappointment. I tend to be somewhat sensitive about plot errors, particularly when they happen for adding additional "action" & unneeded drama.

Things like police attempting to capture some terrorists, who stress beforehand that they need prisoners not just bodies, then return small arms fire on the part of the terrorists by opening up with MINIGUNS & turn the people they need to capture ALIVE into "red mist"! If you need prisoners you don't go after them armed only with weapons that won't leave survivors! Or you've found a safe location to receive contraband shipments. So after receiving the FIRST of 20 shipments, they burn it to "conceal traces" which no one would see, THUS creating the need to find 20 MORE locations for an illegal flight to land!

There are not a huge amount of these (at least not so obvious), but enough to irritate if you're a sharp reader, and after coming to expect better from this author.

There were also a few dialogues that seemed skewed, where a character seemed to be carrying the wrong side of the discussion, or where some point of theirs didn't seem to connect with what they were arguing for/against. ( )
  acb13adm | Sep 13, 2023 |
This story follows snottie Helen Zilwicki and four of her fellow snotties as they go on their first ship duties. Even though things are heating up with Haven, Helen is sent on a new ship - the Hexapuma - to the Talbot Cluster. It should be a quiet area but it was only recently within reach of Manticore as a recently discovered node of Manticore's wormhole. Hexapuma is being captained by Aivars Terekhov who has just recovered from injuries suffered in a previous battle which decimated his command. There is some question that he is able to make the tough decisions that a captain in wartime might have to make and some of the questions come from Terekhov himself.

Many in the Talbot Cluster are afraid that their star systems will be gobbled up by Frontier Security and the Solarian League and have voted to be annexed by Manticore instead. There is a constitutional convention going on filled with its own political infighting. And some of the people who weren't in favor of the annexation are developing their own homegrown terrorist organizations to oppose the vote. We get a look at two of the terrorist organizations. Stephen Westman is on the planet of Montana and Agnes Nordbrandt is on Kornati. They are taking two radically different approaches to their protests. Nordbrandt is favoring killing lots and lots of people whereas Westman has been scrupulously careful not to kill anyone though he isn't opposed to destroying a lot of the property owned by those he considers interlopers. What these two protest organizations have in common is under-the-conter support from an agitator called Firebrand who, unknown to either of them, is an agent of Frontier Security.

I enjoyed getting to know Helen and her fellow snotties and watch them grow as potential Queen's officers. I liked seeing a new part of Weber's world which was away from Manticore. I liked reconnecting with characters from earlier in the series including Commander Ginger Lewis who is the ship's engineer which is quite a change from when we met her as a noncom engineering mate in an earlier book. And also Abigail Hearns whom we met as a young girl on Grayson who wanted to break the stereotypes of her planet and follow her idol Honor Harrington into military service. Now she's a tactical lieutenant. Many other characters from earlier books in the series also make appearances here.

I thought this episode was a nice blend of the political infighting, the military battles and the personal stories of many of the characters. ( )
  kmartin802 | Jul 30, 2020 |
This story follows snottie Helen Zilwicki and four of her fellow snotties as they go on their first ship duties. Even though things are heating up with Haven, Helen is sent on a new ship - the Hexapuma - to the Talbot Cluster. It should be a quiet area but it was only recently within reach of Manticore as a recently discovered node of Manticore's wormhole. Hexapuma is being captained by Aivars Terekhov who has just recovered from injuries suffered in a previous battle which decimated his command. There is some question that he is able to make the tough decisions that a captain in wartime might have to make and some of the questions come from Terekhov himself.

Many in the Talbot Cluster are afraid that their star systems will be gobbled up by Frontier Security and the Solarian League and have voted to be annexed by Manticore instead. There is a constitutional convention going on filled with its own political infighting. And some of the people who weren't in favor of the annexation are developing their own homegrown terrorist organizations to oppose the vote. We get a look at two of the terrorist organizations. Stephen Westman is on the planet of Montana and Agnes Nordbrandt is on Kornati. They are taking two radically different approaches to their protests. Nordbrandt is favoring killing lots and lots of people whereas Westman has been scrupulously careful not to kill anyone though he isn't opposed to destroying a lot of the property owned by those he considers interlopers. What these two protest organizations have in common is under-the-conter support from an agitator called Firebrand who, unknown to either of them, is an agent of Frontier Security.

I enjoyed getting to know Helen and her fellow snotties and watch them grow as potential Queen's officers. I liked seeing a new part of Weber's world which was away from Manticore. I liked reconnecting with characters from earlier in the series including Commander Ginger Lewis who is the ship's engineer which is quite a change from when we met her as a noncom engineering mate in an earlier book. And also Abigail Hearns whom we met as a young girl on Grayson who wanted to break the stereotypes of her planet and follow her idol Honor Harrington into military service. Now she's a tactical lieutenant. Many other characters from earlier books in the series also make appearances here.

I thought this episode was a nice blend of the political infighting, the military battles and the personal stories of many of the characters. ( )
  kmartin802 | Jul 30, 2020 |
I fell in love with this book. Some of the characters I'd met already -- Abigail Hearns, Ginger Lewis, Helen Zilwicki, and Aubrey Wanderman -- and liked. It is Helen's midshipwoman cruise and we get to meet four of her classmates who are aboard the Hexapuma. Assigned to the Talbott Cluster where the planets overwhelmingly asked to be made part of the Star Kingdom, the ship's role is nearly as much diplomatic/political as it is military.

The cast of characters is pretty numerous; luckily in the back of the book is an index to them if you need to keep track of them. They include ship personnel, delegates from the planets to the convention to draft a constitution, various people on the planets, and some Bad Guys (and Gals). You need to be up on previous books that have mentioned genetic slavery ("from the Highlands" in Changer of Worlds, "The Service of the Sword" in The Service of the Sword, and Crown of Slaves come to mind) to get the most from the book.

All that said the story is solid political/military science fiction. I liked the character of Stephen Westman of the planet Montana. His actions blurred the line between patriot and terrorist. There were tissue moments, both sorrow and joy.

If you like the Honor Harrington main series, this is a book that you might also enjoy. Captain Terekhov doesn't tackle things the same way that Honor would, but I could see why he did what he did and how he inspired others. I think this book is well worth the read. ( )
  Jean_Sexton | Sep 22, 2019 |
The Shadow of Saganami is an Honorverse spinoff of the brilliant Honor Harrington series that I really didn’t want to start reading, but I had been reading so much about the several sub-series’ spinoffs and how they elaborate on key plot elements, that I decided to go ahead. And I’m glad I did. Of course, the book didn’t feature Honor and I missed her, and it’s a whole new cast of characters, but you quickly get to know them and care about them and, as it’s a long, long, comprehensive David Weber book, you end up feeling a connection with a number of them by the end of the book.

Saganami Island is Mantictore’s version of the US Naval Academy and this book follows the careers of several recent graduates, most in their first post-graduate assignments as midshipmen. They are assigned to the heavy cruiser HMS Hexapuma, headed by Captain Aivars Terekhov, a mysterious, intense man who is suffering from PTSD due to a terrible battle he survived with a Haven fleet some time before. No one knows if he’s recovered and everyone wonders how he’ll react under pressure.

They are assigned to the Talbot Cluster, a cluster of planetary systems on the verge of the Solarian League near Manticore’s newly discovered Lynx Junction. The planets of the Talbot Cluster have just overwhelming voted in favor of being annexed by the Star Kingdom of Manticore and are drafting a constitution. However, there are some dissidents and some Solly-related planets and corporations willing to arm and aid these dissidents in rebellion in attempts to destabilize their governments and destroy the constitutional convention and the annexation. Of course, if this happens, the Solarian Frontier Security will move in and take over the Cluster and those worlds will be doomed.

The plot of this book is too detailed and far too complex to go into in a significant review of this type. The Hexapuma joins the few Manticoran ships in the area for patrol and support of the cluster’s systems and meanwhile terrorists are blowing up people and planets, aided by mysterious strangers with modern weapons. Terekhov ultimately discovers the secret behind the plot and moves a squad he has called together against a star system to engage in a typical Weber space battle, which is handled pretty well, if a little subdued for Weber. There’s a great deal of tension in this novel and that makes it engaging and interesting. Some of the interesting new characters include Lt Abigail Hearns and Midshipwoman Helen Zilwicki, among others. We’ll see them again in other Honorverse books.

Even though this is a good book and rather enjoyable, I do have a complaint and it’s not unique to Weber. There are, per usual with this author, way too many characters to keep up with. Not only are there a ton of naval officers to try and remember, but there are a ton of system politicians to try and keep track of and it’s virtually impossible to do so. To make matters worse, the Talbot Cluster is larger than I ever imagined and we’re introduced to what seems like a ton of planetary systems. Somehow, we’re supposed to keep track of worlds like Spindle, Pontifex, Split, San Miguel, Montana, Rembrandt, Kornatia, Nuncio, Mesa, Dresden, Monica, Torch, and of course, Grayson and Manticore, among others, and there are also scenes featuring Manpower, the Jessyk Combine, and Technodyne Corp., the “evil” corporations behind all that’s wrong with the picture in this puzzle. It’s just too much. And of course, all of these planets and corporations have presidents, vice presidents, admirals, boards of directors, police chiefs, various naval ships, most of which are obsolete by Manticoran standards, and so on. It’s damned annoying and stupid!

Whatever the case, this is a good book. It’s got a good plot, introduces an interesting new cast of characters, has a couple of decent naval battles, has some ground battles, has some political intrigue, if that’s your game, and fills in a lot that’s left out in the main Honor books. However, it’s typically long, at times it drags, the plot can be a little convoluted and somewhat scattered, the names of characters and planets are just too much and too many to make the book enjoyable, and it’s a little galling to think that this is the first book in an Honor sub-series, one of several, information that can’t actually be told in a real Honor book, which is annoying. Worthy of five stars? Not quite. But certainly worthy of four stars. A solid four star effort. And definitely recommended. ( )
  scottcholstad | Jan 2, 2016 |
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» Add other authors (1 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
David Weberprimary authorall editionscalculated
Mattingly, DavidCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Randy AsplundMapssecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Russo, CarolCover designersecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Snyder, JayNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
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Epigraph
Dedication
For Anne McCaffrey,
because ideas, like dragons, fly,
and you helped give mine wings.
First words
The missile salvo came screaming in from astern.
Quotations
"What sort of raw meat do you people feed your cruiser captains, Hamish?" Queen Elizabeth III of Manticore inquired acidly.
Last words
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
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The Star Kingdom of Manticore is once again at war with the Republic of Haven after a stunning sneak attack. The graduating class from Saganami Island, the Royal Manticoran Navy's academy, are going straight from the classroom to the blazing reality of all-out war--except for the midshipmen assigned to the heavy cruiser HMS Hexapuma, that is. They're being assigned to the Talbott Cluster, a backwater far from the battle front. With a captain who may have seen too much of war and a station commander who isn't precisely noted for his brilliant and insightful command style, it isn't exactly what the students of Honor Harrington expected. But things aren't as simple--or tranquil--as they appear. Pirates, terrorists, genetic slavers, smuggled weapons, long-standing personal hatreds, and a vicious alliance of corporate greed, bureaucratic arrogance, and a corrupt local star nation with a powerful fleet, are all coming together, and only Hexapuma, her war-weary captain, and Honor Harrington's students stand in the path. They have only one thing to support and guide them: the tradition of Saganami. The tradition that sometimes a Queen's officer's duty is to face impossible odds...and die fighting.

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