Book Review: 'The Combat Codes' by Alexander Darwin

I enjoyed 'The Combat Codes', the first book in a series by Alexander Darwin.

The story is set in a Sci-Fi world where wars no longer exist. Instead, any disputes that would previously have been settled by going to war, are now fought between regional champion fighters in mixed martial arts, known as Grievars. They fight so others don't have to. Murray Pearson, a former champion himself, now scouts for potential young fighters in the slave circles, recruiting them for the Citadel - a prestigious combat school that moulds these raw recruits into champion Grievar fighters. But when Murray spots a young boy at a fighting circle, he sees something in him, a potential that the boy, Cego, will become one of the best, and Murray will do anything to secure his talents.

It's a very good read that had me invested from the beginning. The first third of the book is more slower paced than the rest of the book, which, as much as you want to get straight to the action, especially in a book that has martial arts, you sometimes need to balance things and get to know the setting and characters better first. And the author did a really good job here of introducing the world, the society, the concept of Grievars and Daimyo, as well as of course introducing the two main characters the book follows, Murray and Cego. They were really well developed with a pleasantly surprising amount of depth and emotion. A few hints of their past sprinkled here and there helped to fully develop and flesh them out, but enough to keep you guessing until the payoff is revealed. And as the story progressed, you really end up cheering them on! Even the secondary characters were really well written, I really liked the contrast in characters within Cego's team at the Citadel giving a real sense of depth to the world, despite sometimes not given much 'screen-time'. My only criticism is that we weren't given much explanation into who or what the beings of light - the spectrals - were, considering how much they were mentioned. It didn't detract from the story, but as everything else seemed to be built up, the level of depth here seemed to be missing.

The core of the book is mixed martial arts (MMA), and I expected it to be quite brutal and graphic, maybe something akin to the martial arts movies from the 1980s, but I was pleasantly surprised at how well the fighting was handled. The author is a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt, and it showed with the descriptions of the fights, the fighting techniques and the character's mindsets when in the fighting circle. All very detailed and coming across as very authentic. It's not my area of knowledge, so I wasn't too familiar with some of the terminology, but as the book progressed I became more accustomed to jargon, which made it that bit more enjoyable.

As I read through, the book tugged at some familiar settings and themes. I caught a little bit of 'Ender's Game' here, a dash of 'The Karate Kid' there, a drop of 'The Matrix', and I even got vibes of Kaladin and Bridge 4 from Brandon Sanderson's 'The Stormlight Archives' during Cego's time in Thaloo's slave circles. No complaints at all though, as I felt that 'The Combat Codes' sampled all the best bits and blended them all together into an MMA sauce, resulting in a delicious science fiction story that was enthralling and satisfying, with some great characters plus a few twists and turns for good measure to keep things interesting throughout.

The series off to a good start and I look forward to reading more!

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