Review: excellent sci-fi well written book
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 01 13, 2013
The Riss Gamble is the story of a young woman, Nadya, whose life's dream is to venture into space and meet aliens. She gets her chance in the navy by volunteering for an experiment, the Riss experiment. That means accepting a facial tattoo and an intelligent parasite for life. A whole extra being inside her that can not only communicate with her but can control her neurological functions. However Riss parasite doesn't turn out to be the problem, the humans do with their prejudice, fear and hatred. To make sure they can be identified at a distance all who participate in the Riss experiment are tattooed. The tattoo brands her as an alien host and she is shunned, feared and hated before she is ever met by many and needs to prove her worth and defend herself and her Riss Thalia constantly.Nadya finds the alien parasite, Thalia is extremely intelligent, has a sense of humor and doesn't seek power or control of her human host, Nadya, as most humans believe and fear.  They struggle to gain acceptance for themselves and to see if a partnership between humans and Riss is possible.  The empire's navy is pursuing an elusive group of ruthless raiders praying upon those less able to protect themselves. The action is pretty nonstop, between captains who think they are an abomination and want them discredited and off their ship, to encounters with the raiders and crew members out for revenge for a perceived wrong. The dialog between Nadya and Thalia is entertaining and at times thought provoking. Great fast moving story once the set up in the beginning is in place. (yes the start is a little slow which is why I gave a 4 star and not a 5) I enjoyed it greatly and once I finished reading it promptly bought the next book in the series.