Rating: 
Summary: Hugely dissapointing and lacklustre
Review: Let me begin by saying I am (& remain) a huge Miles fan. I have enjoyed (& occasionally re-read) every one of the previous books.
However, IMHO this book falls far short of any previous offering, failing to "spark" pretty well from the start. It feels "rehashed" with the plot devices feeling all too familar and often being telegraphed (eg the handkercief).
I initially thought this slowness and familiarity was a ploy to lull me into a false sense of security before a whiplash plot twist or revelation a la "Memory". However, there are no twists or interwoven layers here and the characterisation (especially Bel's) is way short of what we have come to expect from Lois.
That being said I'm hanging out for the next installment and hoping for a return to Miles' usual blinding form!!
Rating: 
Summary: It was nice, but..
Review: I was hoping for Admiral Naismith hyperactivity, and I didn't get it. This is the first Bujold book which brings Quaddies, Cetaganda and Miles together, so perhaps I shouldn't complain. But if Miles is slowing down, what fun is left?
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing book as well as some reviews...
Review: I was really disappointed - after brilliant "Civil Campain" I expected for something bigger and stronger. And all we got was mixture of "Cetaganda" motives and "Komarr"'s plot (Auditor investigating...), unfortunately minus Miles-Ekaterin romance...!
Probably Lois used her yearly supply of talent on "Curse of Chalion"? Kidding! Lois is talented enough for making this book readable and funny! (Terry Goodkind, please LEARN something from her!!!)P.S. By the way, I disagreee with the people saying "Cetaganda" was a cheap knock-off
Rating: 
Summary: More Miles of Enjoyment
Review: On the way home from their honeymoon, Miles receives an urgent message from Gregor to proceed posthaste to Graf Station, where some of Gregor's xenophobic subjects have made asses of themselves and caused themselves and a convoy of Barrayaran and Komarran ships to be detained by the Quaddie government. Many individuals and situations turn out not to be what at first they seem, but in the end, Miles unscrambles the complex web of deceit and treachery, engineers the capture of the bad guy, returns what was stolen, helps save the career of one who turns out not to be as bad as he at first appears, prevents a war, and restores cordial relations between Barrayar and Quaddiespace; and still gets home to Barrayar in time for the birth of his and Ekaterin's first two children. Whew! Altho you can enjoy "Diplomatic Immunity" thoroly without, I recommend reading "Falling Free" first so you will know (for example) why Graf Station and the Minchenko Ballet are so named. Once you read any one of the Miles Vorkosigan adventures, you will surely want to read all the rest of them, and you will be eagerly awaiting the next one.
Rating: 
Summary: It was okay
Review: I don't think Lois Bujold is able to write a truly bad book, but I have to admit to a sneaking disappointment after the brilliance of the last three (Memory, Komarr, and most especially A Civil Campaign). Partly this is because having at last got Miles and Ekaterin safely engaged, I think fans were owed a wedding and a bedding! This we don't get since Diplomatic Immunity is set eighteen months after that event. But more seriously, having introduced us to Ekaterin in the previous two books - and she's a character just as appealing as Miles - Bujold shuffles her offstage for much of the book. It's almost as though she doesn't quite know what to do with her. A tragic waste. Still, for all this there are some good lines in the book and a fairly tense climax in which Miles saves the day again. And we also get to see the arrival of the next generation of Vorkosigans, which has got to be good news. Read it and hope for more from the next installment.
Rating:
Summary: Bow to the Auditor!
Review: Ah, the space opera of old, with ray guns sizzling and the Patrol just waiting for the sub-space yell for help to come high-tailing it through hyperspace to the rescue! (Exclamation points optional, but rarely left out). But that was the old days, and this is now the 21st century, and a new brand of space opera has arisen, championed by Ms. Bujold. Somehow the ray guns and exclamation points have disappeared, but not the sense of breathless, pell-mell, don't stop to smell the roses action. 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)
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing Miles
Review: The last three Vorkosigan books (Memory, Komarr, A Civil Campaign) have gone onto my all-time favorite books list. So it was just too much to hope that Bujold could keep up that momentum. This isn't a bad book, but it seems more like an interlude from the grand Vorkosigan plotline.
Although one parallel really disturbs me. I've always thought Miles owed more to Lord Peter Wimsey than any other inspiration. (A suspicion I felt was confirmed when Dorothy Sayers was one of the people A Civil Campaign was dedicated to). My favorite Lord Peter novel is Gaudy Night, in which Peter proposes to Harriet. And that was pretty much the end of the series. The last Lord Peter novel (Busman's Honeymoon) has the married Peter and Harriet solving a crime together, but the passion was gone. I hope that the same will not prove true for Miles and Ekaterin.
Rating:
Summary: Solid but minor SF mystery - a lesser Vorkosigan novel
Review: Lois McMaster Bujold's Diplomatic Immunity is the latest of her extended series about Miles Vorkosigan, an Imperial Auditor from the rather autocratic planet Barrayar. As Miles returns from his honeymoon trip, he is sent to try to solve a problem for Barrayar at Graf Station in Quaddiespace, the remote system inhabited by the "Quaddies", genetically modified four-armed humans who were introduced in Bujold's first award-winning novel, 1988's Falling Free. It seems that a Barrayaran crew escorting a group of merchant ships has gotten in trouble with the Quaddies, and the merchant fleet has been detained. Profits are at stake, as is Barrayar's reputation, and possibly their right to trade in Quaddiespace. Miles shows up and finds that the situation is more complex than expected. One Barrayaran crew member has disappeared, and another apparently wishes to desert. The Quaddies are furious, and the merchants are furious. Luckily for Miles, he has an unexpected friend on Graf Station: Bel Thorne, who worked with Miles early in his career, and who still secretly works for Barrayar. With Bel's help, Miles starts to get to the bottom of the various mysteries, only to find that an even worse crisis looms, involving the possibility of war with Barrayar's traditional enemy, Cetaganda, as well as a threat to destroy Graf Station. Bujold is always a readable writer, and she tells a fairly decent story here. But some of the energy of the earlier Miles books is lacking. One wonders if her interest in the series is declining, or if the newly settled nature of Miles's life (his stable job, his happy marriage) has leached the tension from the overall series story arc. This novel is enjoyable but not exceptional, and the ending is reasonable but in many ways very pat, very convenient. Minor Bujold.
Rating:
Summary: more Miles - I can't wait for the next
Review: Great continuation of the Miles Vorkosigan saga.
Just when you thought his new domstic situation would calm things down, we have another great story.
Rating:
Summary: Old Home Week...
Review: In Diplomatic Immunity, in addition to Miles bending his considerable brain power on yet another crisis, we find out what happened to one of Miles' old friends, who is also mixed up in the current crisis. It's Old Home Week in another sense, too, in that we discover what it was that the quaddies did with the freedom they took 200 years ago in Falling Free. The depiction of the society they've built is engaging and fascinating. This is another fantastic Miles Vorkosigan book. What can I say? Read it.
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