Diplomatic Immunity

I agree that this book isn't as funny as "A Civil Campaign" or as touching as "The Mountains of Mourning" (surely one of the finest bits of writing in or out of the SF world) but it has points that shouldn't be overlooked. Miles as diplomat, friend, strategist, and husband, Ekaterin creating her own version of Lady Vorkosigan with grace, wit, and courage, Bel Thorne coping with loving, aging, and confronting its past -- these are adult themes. Sure, I realize that the old slam-bang-everybody-duck Miles isn't in this book -- most of the time. However, the intellect is there. So is the absolute rock bottom dependability and the honor of a Vorkosigan, whatever the situation. Most fascinating, however, is the point that all the reviewers seem to overlook. That's his relationship with the Cetagandan ghem-lord Benin and the haut-lady Pel. This is the sort of edgy relationship, part friendship and part diplomatic standoff, that's hard to write. Ms. Bujold does it beautifully. I admire all the Vorkosigan tales. I like to laugh out loud over scenes like the dinner party and his no-holds-barred courtship technique. I'm old enough to understand the aching emptiness left by his honored dead, and can remember being young enough that being different was the last thing you wanted to be. However, I can appreciate that not all of anyone's life can be lived on overdrive, even if you are Miles. This book proves that even a more sedate hyperactive is still enough of a character to carry a story! As an aside - Admiral Vorpatril's relationship to 'that idiot Ivan' may be Ms. Bujold's way of suggesting gently that he's not the most brilliant light in the Winterfair display, a theory that seems to be carried to conclusion by his behavior.

Lois McMaster Bujold's hero, Miles Vorkosigan, 4'9" of hyperactive military and investigative genius returns in a new adventure. Miles has come a long way, from the botched asassination attempt while he was still in his mother's womb, resulting in his diminutive and deformed status, to his present existence as an expectant father.Miles' delayed honeymoon with his wife, the lovely and intelligent Ekaterin, is winding down, the happy couple returning home to Barrayar, where they have two children waiting to be born in uterine replicators. However, trouble has been brewing, and Emperor Gregor has a mission for Miles in his capacity as Imperial Auditor: Free up a merchant convoy which has been detained in Quaddiespace, due to the heavy-handed behaviour of the Barrayaran military escort.Things are not quite what they seem, which should come as no surprise to Ms. Bujold's faithful readers. We get to meet again with Bel Thorne, last seen in "Mirror Dance" a Betan hermaphrodite who was formerly a captain with the Dendarii Mercenaries Miles had commanded in his Admiral Naismith persona. We also meet several other past members of the Vorkosigan Universe, including Nicol, the lovely Quaddiemusician introduced in the short story "Labyrinth." Quaddies were genetically engineered to have 4 arms, the second pair where the legs would be, the better to live and work in zero gravity.There are plenty of twists and turns, but this is perhaps the weakest novel in the entire Vorkosigan saga. This novel has the feel more of a novella than a true novel, almost more like one of the short stories in "Borders of Infinity". Still, Ms. Bujold on an off day is better than most authors at their best.

Hurrah! Another Vorkosigan book makes its way into the world.Actually, the previous sentence reminds me to warn first-time Bujold readers: this is not the book you want to start with. For a long time, the Vorkosigan books were rather independant of each other; it was possible to just pick up any of the series and give it a go. But as time (and plot) go by, characters and motiviations have begun to build on each other. I recommend reading Bujold books in the order they were written.Lord Miles Vorkosigan and Madame Ekaterin Vorsoisson have not only gotten married, they've made it to the honeymoon, nearly one year later. But of course, in Miles's universe, nothing goes according to plan. Miles is an Imperial Auditor of Barrayar, a fancy sounding title that really means Emperor Gregor sends him in to clean up the nasty spills with discretion.Miles and Ekaterin are diverted off course to Graff Station, home of the quaddies. Upon arriving, Miles discovers that the Barrayaran military fleet stationed there has overreacted and created a diplomatic situation, which is of course mostly their own fault. It looks like all Miles will need to do is some fancy diplomatic shoe-stepping, while meeting up with some supporting characters we haven't seen for a while. (It's nice to know that Bel Thorne landed on its feet.)This cozy little schema quickly goes down the [tubes]. People begin to go missing, a young hothead decides to give everything up for love, and of course the classic Miles-you-should-pay-attention-to-this warning pops up: strange people do unexplainable things that don't seem to have anything to do with the current problem.In classic Miles/Bujold style all of the loose ends are securely tied up by the end. I do wish that there was more Ekaterin in the plot. It was nice to know that she finally became aggressive when necessary, but it would have been better to "see" her do it, instead of reading about it afterwards. She was a rather flat character in Komarr, but developed so nicely in A Civil Campaign that I hoped to see more of her. I think of this book as one of the "Vorkosigan Lite" novels, along with Cetaganda. They're funny and great to read, but they don't have the in-depth character development and life changing events like Mirror Dance and Barrayar. But that's fine with me. Sometimes it's nice to just read an interesting story about Vorkosigans, and be able to laugh at the end.

Lois McMaster Bujold's first new Vorkosigan novel in two and a half years not only moves the story line to nearly two years after Miles and Ekaterin have been married (a story, presumably, to be chronicled some time in the future), but is the first novel since Mirror Dance to take place primarily outside the Barrayaran Empire.In brief, it is a story of Miles playing troublshooter for a diplomatic incident gone horribly wrong in Quaddiespace - home of the quaddies first introduced in the novel "Falling Free". With tensions between quaddie and the Barrayarans stretched, tensions between Cetaganda and Barrayaer taking a turn for the worse, tensions between the trader Komarrans and the militarstic Barrayarns never far below the surface and a deadline for Miles and Ekaterin to return home for the birth of their first children, and deaths reported on the Quaddies' Graf Station, everything seems stretched to the breaking point even in the first chapter. As Miles investigates the situation, a relatively simple murder mystery rapidly transforms into a very palpable suspense with ties to many aspects of Miles' past.As implied, it helps greatly to be familiar with Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga universe before reading this book. In particular, the events of "Falling Free", "Cetaganda", "Mirror Dance" and "A Civil Campaign" all feature with varying degrees of prominence in the story. While one could take the novel on it's own merits and probably enjoy it very much, it is much more effective when taken within previously established history.While not her singularly finest Vorkosigan book to date, it is nonetheless quite good and is certainly better than the majority of science fiction available today and ranks in quality with most of the rest of her series. It weaves together old strands of plot - perhaps eternally tying up one or two - while leaving other others wide open to, undoubtedly, bedevil Miles in the future. I most certainly recommend this to the Vorkosigan fans eagerly awaiting the next installment of the series, but I would steer first time Lois McMaster Bujold readers back to "Shards of Honor" or, perhaps, if not wishing to go back quite so far, "Komarr".

Another highly exciting and satisfying episode in the career of Miles Vorkosigan. Probably not the best spot for a reader new to the series to start, but as always a possible place for a new reader to start. (The references, jokes, and back-history are richer and easier to understand if you've read the other books; in this case "Falling Free" and "Cetaganda" would be good ones to read first.) One theme that comes out strongly in this book is the hunger to become a parent. Also, Miles has always been good at developing and promoting his subordinates; watch what happens to anyone who works with him in this book. All this, and many kinds of diplomacy and adventure, with a dizzying descent into increasing, spreading danger for more and more people, finally tied up with a satisfying ending. Oh, she's done it again! (When is the next one?)