Desperate Measures: A Novel in the Riss Series

by C.R. Daems

The Commonwealth of Stars, COS, has been invaded by the Issog, a bat-like species who considers the humans not only animals, but livestock. Over the past several years of war they have encroached farther into COS space, and the consensus is for the Issog to defeat the Commonwealth within the next five years. To make matters worse, the Arrith nation, a lizard-like species, is building up its fleets to take on the winner—the bats or the monkeys as they refer to them—since the winner will have all but exhausted its navy. The Commonwealth's only hope is that a newly developed technology can help them defeat the Issog and retain sufficient resources afterward to force the Arrith to continue their twenty-year nonaggression treaty. But the technology is unproven and possibly beyond the humans' ability to adapt.

Genres: Science Fiction

363 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 21, 2017

About the author

I was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, and joined the military right out of high school. I served twenty-two years in the United States Air Force as a certified internal auditor. While in the military service, I lived in seven states and two foreign countries, and obtained two degrees: a BS in mathematics and an MS in computer science.

After I retired from the Air Force, I secured a position with Digital Equipment Corporation, located in Bedford, Massachusetts, as a software course developer and instructor. I worked twenty-two years at DEC and held positions as a course developer, course development manager, software engineer, and software engineering manager.

Today, I’m retired and live in Tucson, Arizona, with my wife of fifty-three years. My daughter and two grandchildren live in Maryland. I began writing several years after I retired, when I was seventy. My first two attempts remain in my desk drawer—good ideas, but poorly written. Subsequently, I co-authored, with Jeanne Tomlin, three fantasy novels: Talon of the Raptor Clan, Scales of Justice, and All My Friends Have Wings (young adults). Talon of the Raptor Clan was sold to ePress-online Books and came out in July 2009. Since then I have written two additional novels: The Laughing Hounds (urban fantasy) and The Riss Gamble (science fiction).

My hobbies for the past forty years have been kung fu and tai chi.

Reviews

[Jo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overly complicated

It was an interesting idea, the concept of a battleship monitored by implant. Truly.
But..
No military can function like depicted. There was no mention of military intelligence, no mention of the crews. The admirality seems to spend its time in their own rooms, drinking. When the Odin was destroyed and Zoe relocated to the Thor, the crew of the Thor was mentioned yet later on we have first and second bridge crew commanders of the Odin are responding. When did they get aboard? What happened to the original commanders?
The book started with Zoe Lafon. That remained for three quarters of the book. Then the focus got to Admiral Simons. And for the last 10 percent of the book we suddenly have two new space species saving the day?
Lastly the battles were overly complicated. I understand the reasoning behind but if reading two pages of "A2 skipping to CF1 then returning to M2, etc.." you lost me there.
An interesting read, but I won't read a second one

[Shane Lawrence · Rating 2 out of 5]

Simple beyond belief....

Maybe there are other books in the series that I have missed, but this was simple beyond belief… No plot twist, no unexpected subterfuge and not really much in the way of a plot… It had great potential and cleary the author can write, but there is no compelling story or reason to be interested in any of the characters

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was ok

I was somewhat disappointed. Not with the writing in tat it was a good book. However, I kept waiting and anticipating the part where Nadia and the Riss came in since those are the ones I was already invested in and wanting to read about and the way the book before ended I thought this would carry on the Riss story.

[jj · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not a winner

I hesitate to provide this review since the Riss series is one of my favorite reads. However, this book is a sad disappointment. It almost seems as if the writing was by a different author, or the author rushed the writing just get something published.
A disappointing conclusion to a great series.

[Ian Denner · Rating 2 out of 5]

Boring

This is the first book by the author that I did not enj2at all. There was no character development, the plot was lacking in depth, the action sequences did not hold my attention very well and overall found the storyline could not keep me reading for very long.

[Teresa Carrigan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Military SF/space opera. Set in same universe as the author’s Riss series, but in a different part of the galaxy. The end of the last Riss book takes place near the end of this book. I enjoyed reading it, but there are no hints of a sequel.

[Tony Hisgett · Rating 2 out of 5]

In some ways I quite enjoyed this book, but it had some issues and I really wasn’t sure what rating to give it.


After the slow start to the book, while Zoe is being prepared to command the new ship, I was interested to see how the conflict would develop when the Odin was finally involved in a battle, but I began to notice some inconsistencies, for example after the initial fight the author writes;
The eight Issog cruisers were destroyed, while the Commonwealth lost only two.
Then a few pages later while the admiral is taking to the Commonwealth crews;
Today, the Issog had a bad day and lost eight to our five

My problem with these inconsistencies is it makes me begin to question the story, so instead of just being able to go with the flow I am always checking ‘does this make sense’.

Once you start to question the story there are lots of things that don’t make sense e.g. The marines come out badly when fighting the Issog on the ground, so why doesn’t the Commonwealth use armour, either personnel or even vehicles? Why don’t they use their air superiority to strafe and bomb them?

Also at one point Perkins says;
The Issog have no way to produce new cruisers, so when we destroy one, they have one less. How did they make them in the first place? How can they keep the war going if they can’t replace casualties? Why isn’t this explained? There is a hint much later in the book, but no clear explanation.

Early in the description of the Odin class cruisers it was made clear they had bigger and more effective lasers, but nobody ever seems to use them.

The appearance of the Riss at the end of the book was a bit strange. Before starting this book I thought it might be book 7 in the Riss series but after reading the initial blurb it appeared it must be a stand alone or new series. Now I am just confused. Although not quite as confused by 'CF2 skipped to M5 and CF3 to M6' etc. etc. etc.