panguitch's Full Review: Lois McMaster Bujold - Diplomatic Immunity: A Vork...
Never mind the fact that you're physically repulsive and romantically dysfunctional. A beautiful, intelligent woman has fallen in love with you and, despite your best attempts to scare her off, consented to be your wife. As the shock of her acceptance—of your proposal, of your body, of your scattered brain—wears off, the clumsy adrenaline of all your anxieties slacks into a calm bliss.
It's your honeymoon, and every honeymoon needs only a few simple things to be memorable: a murder mystery, an interstellar political crisis, and an awkward encounter with a former love interest.
Diplomatic Immunity
Lois McMaster Bujold
"I smell diplomacy," grimaces Miles Vorkosigan when his honeymoon is interrupted by an assignment to rescue a Barrayaran fleet impounded on the far side of the wormhole nexus. A military man tempered by years working in intelligence, Miles is now an Imperial Auditor, and diplomacy is in the job description.
He and his wife Ekaterin arrive on the scene to find their mutant-phobic countrymen in a standoff with Quaddies, bioengineered zero gravity dwellers with extra arms in place of legs. It seems one Barrayaran soldier has gone missing, another has eloped with a Quaddie, and several more have been imprisoned for trying to re-enlist the deserter.
What seems to be a simple problem of extricating the Barrayaran fleet before war breaks out soon becomes complicated when Miles runs into Bel Thorne, the former subordinate who helped get him killed once already and who happens to be a Betan hermaphrodite and persistent would-be lover. Try explaining that to your new wife. Thankfully, before things get too awkward, someone starts trying to assassinate Miles.
Diplomatic Immunity (2002) is the most recent installment of Lois McMaster Bujold's fourteen-volume Vorkosigan series. It will probably not be the last, and that's a good thing, because this is a series that deserves to end on a great note, and Diplomatic Immunity is at best another fun Vorkosigan romp, with little more to recommend it than the formula that has proven so reliable for Bujold.
That recipe calls for a sharp but not sarcastic humor, a continuously twisting plot, some frenetic brain-work from Miles, and characters so likeable you can't help but wish Bujold were your best friend. Quite simply, the book works. It's fun to read and well-written. And that's just the problem. Bujold has polished her craft to the point that Diplomatic Immunity feels too easy, too comfortable, even in its moments of tension.
The static state of the characters highlights the problem. It's nice to see how Bel has changed after the shock of her dismissal in Mirror Dance. Miles and Ekaterin are precious in their post-nuptial bliss. And it's great to revisit the Quaddies of Falling Free. But no one holds any surprises for us, except for the two adversaries, and their surprises come mostly in lumps of exposition when their mysteries unravel.
Even the political intrigue seems limited in scope for most of the novel, although when the Cetagandans get involved I always perk up. And the danger that Miles suffers? Well, he's already died once, what's to worry about? Diplomatic Immunity is a safe book. I enjoyed it, but I can't help but think of it as a placeholder while I wait for the next Vorkosigan story.
– Panguitch
Diplomatic Immunity will also be available August 2007 in an omnibus edition, Miles, Mutants and Microbes, which will include the novel Falling Free and the novella "Labyrinth."
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