Diplomatic Immunity
Lois McMaster Bujold
367 pages
published in 2002

Diplomatic Immunity is the latest entry in the Miles Vorkosigan series, which started in 1986 with Shards of Honor, though that one actually started Miles' mum and dad. Miles himself first appeared in The Warrior's Apprentice of the same year. At the time he was only 17, rash, eager to get into trouble, forceful, charming if he wanted to be, mildly to highly obnoxious the rest of the time.

In Diplomatic Immunity much has changed: for a start, Miles is now 32...

Unlikely though as it might seem at times to his fans, the little runt has grown up a lot in the course of the series, so much so that he might actually be called mature in this book. Married, with children safely incubated back home, he and Ekaterin, his wife, are on their honeymoon, when Miles recieves a message from the Barrayan Emperor, or Gregor, as Miles calls him. It seems a diplomatic crisis has broken out at Graf station and Miles as one of the Emperor's Voices is requested to sort it out.

The crisis in question sounds like something Miles could've caused... Graf station is part of Quaddie space; Quaddies are genengineered humans adapted to zero-g living by having no legs but two sets of arms. You can imagine that this doesn't go over well with your average Barrayan, provincial and somewhat obsessed with mutations. It all started when a Komarran trade fleet, ith a Barrayan military escort pulled into the station and one of the security officers disappeared and was later assumed to have been murdered. The commander of the fleet decides to cancel all leaves and move the fleet out from the station as a security measure. And then another officer, together with the two man security patrol sent to retrieve him, turns up missing, the Barrayans launch a rescue attempt, this goes wrong, a firefight ensues between Quaddie security and the Barrayans, the latter get arrested and last but not least, the trade fleet is impounded until damages are paid...

A nice little job for our boy, in other words, exactly the kind of mess he himself used to leave for others to clean up... Miles has to smooth things over with the station's authorities, free the Barrayans imprisoned by them, get the Komarran trade fleet out of the station and solve the mysteries of the disappeared security officer, all without causing a war to break out and with tensions high between the Komarrans and Barrayans as well. In the meantime, there's also something going on in the Cetegandian Empire, though that fortunately isn't Miles' problem...

As usual with Bujold, this read very fast and was utterly engrossing, yet I cannot help but feel a bit disappointed. The Miles Vorkosigna series started out as light entertainment but about halfway through, from Brothers in Arms onwards made an incredible jump in quality, as the stories got more "adult", with actual consequences for Miles if he screwed up. While the series matured, Miles matured, until, in A Civil Campaign, there wasn't an external enemy anymore and the characters and setting were strong enough to support a story on their own.

But here we have a story that implicitely and explicitely (in the shape of Bel Thorne) harkens back to Miles' earliest adventures. Of the problems outlined above which Miles has to solve, only the disappearance of the security officer is focussed on, which turns out to be part of a far wider-ranging plot with serious consquences for Barrayar if it isn't stopped. The rest are more or less ignored, only solved in passing thanks to Miles solving the mystery.

This is a valid choice to make and there's nothing wrong with the story itself; I was completely engrossed in it and my objections only came after I'd read it. But I still feel dissatisfied. When I started reading this I was looking forward to seeing Miles solve these problems: how was he going to talk the Quaddies into handing over their prisoners and letting the Komarran ships go without having to pay the huge fines the Quaddies were demanding? But we never got to see how he would've handled that, as that wasn't the story Bujold choose to tell. A pity.

The other major disappointment in this story was the treatment of Ekaterin, who played a far smaller role here than she did in A Civil Campaign or even Komarr. I would've liked to see them work together more than they did here.

Finally, I got the feeling that this was designed to bring closure to the series. With the reappearance of Bel Thorne, Cetagandan plotting and even the Quaddies, the smell of nostalgia hangs in the air. With some many explicit or implicit references to earlier books in the series, it is as if this is Lois saying goodbye to it. I know there's at least one more book (Winter's Fair) scheduled in the series, but since that takes place between A Civil Campaign and this, it would not at all surprise me if Diplomatic Immunity is Bujold's farewell to the Barrayar universe.

I've reread Diplomatic Immunity. My verdict remains largely the same.