I was torn between three and four stars. Finally ended up giving four, since I honestly enjoyed the book so much three would have just been being a sourpuss. Captain Vorpatril's Alliance is a lot of fun.

It has its problems - the middle part sags, and I'd rather have been spared the Vorkosigan's Greatest Hits section, where characters from previous books are paraded out just so that the present protagonists can gawk at the awesome stuff they've done. Problem is, the reader already knows all this, so the whole section comes off a bit as "you thought this was great the first time, so let's go over it again". Which is really unnecessary. As much as I love Miles Vorkosigan - particularily the young, over-energetic, forward-momentum-and-damn-the-consequences Miles, his cameo here doesn't add anything to the book.

But enough grumbling. Ivan Vorpatril makes a nice protagonist, and the twin plots held my interest better than, say, Diplomatic Immunity or Cryoburn. The beginning is good, the ending is good and the character dynamics worked. This is essentially a caper novel, and being that, doesn't take itself too seriously, nor let things get too dark.