Diplomatic Immunity [Paperback]

As usual the title is a clever play on the plot and develops throughout the story, Miles and his lovely new wife, Ekaterin are charming and funny together and we get to meet a few old friends as well as make new ones.

Bujold also develops plot lines that were laid down many years ago (Falling Free)so we can finally see Quaddie Space and her description of a night at the free-fall ballet was excellent.

After reading the latest from Bujold I have immediately picked up one of her older ones (Memory, in fact)and will reread it before going back to reread Diplomatic Immunity.

Thank you Ms Bujold for writing about someone who has become like a personal friend after all these years, I look forward to your future writing with eagerness and interest.

GO Miles!

A whole fleet of Komarran vessels has been impounded at Graff Station in Quaddie Space for, well, hmm, gross interferance with the local legal system or a bunch of genetically engineered freaks depending on whether you want to believe Imperial Security's Local Observer or the Fleet's military commander. When IS's Observer turns out to be a former employee (and almost-lover), things become even more uncertain.

This is not one of the classic Miles books, but there is a sense of closure of a sort as Miles looks towards fatherhood and has to reconcile his new responsibilities with the dangers of his job. It is still an excellent read, though, containing all the action and deductive skills that one has come to expect from the series.

This is the latest in her long line of books about Miles Vorkosigan, nimble of mind, short of stature, often subject to seemingly irrational urges towards rash actions. For this book, he is somewhat toned down, perhaps a little more mature, being now a happily married man, as well as having been promoted to be Imperial Auditor. When his honeymoon is interrupted by a request to go straighten out a diplomatic mess in Quaddie space, about three pages into the book, you just know you’re in for another wild ride through Miles’ version of how to solve a problem, which is never by just diplomatic means. The ‘problem’ in this case quickly turns into something of a murder mystery (sans body), and Miles must deal with how to gather pertinent information amongst a group of people who are not only antagonistic, but feel that anyone with two arms and two legs (as opposed to four arms) is sub-human and has criminal tendencies.

Bujold, as usual, keeps many threads spinning in this adventure tale, from Miles’ relationship with a hermaphroditic old friend to a possible all-out war hanging on the resolution of this problem. But perhaps because Miles must now operate very much in the open, rather than as a clandestine undercover operative, there seems to be a little less excitement to this tale than some of the prior works, with Miles only able to operate as a one-man desperado army near the tail end of the book. The tongue-in-cheek humor that suffuses earlier books is not nearly as prominent in this novel, a definite detriment as this was one of the series’ basic charms. Characterization for anyone other than Miles is fairly sparse and often rather stereotypical. And the resolution of the murder mystery struck me as somewhat far-fetched, as merely a way to bring in even more far-reaching consequences and complications.

Still, a nicely entertaining book, another entry into this new breed of space opera that shows that this type of fiction still has life left in it.

--- Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)