#CoolArt: New Cover Art for Alexander Darwin's 'The Combat Codes' Novel from Orbit Books

New cover art for a new expanded edition of 'The Combat Codes', book 1 of the trilogy written by Alexander Darwin.

You can read my review of the original book here.

'The Combat Codes' will be released June 13 2023 through Orbit Books.

Book Review: 'The Combat Codes: Book 3 - Blacklight Born' by Alexander Darwin

'Blacklight Born' is the third and final book in Alexander Darwin's 'The Combat Codes' trilogy, and was a great finish to the series.

Split into two parts, the first part focuses on Murray Pearson and the Whelps - Dozer, Knees and Brynn - as they travel on a Pilgrimage, a Grievar tradition that involves fighting challenges across the nation. But Murray has another reason for joining the Whelps on their pilgrimage, he's searching for his protége Cego. 

Mostly following Murray's point of view, it works very well. Punctuated with flashbacks, these glimpses catch us up on the back story of what has been going on in between books, adding depth to story, the world building, and the character development, especially for Murray, as he drags himself from a drunken despair after losing Cego at the end of the previous book, 'Grievar's Blood', before waking from his stupor and realising that he has a promise to keep, one which he can't keep if he's feeling sorry for himself at the bottom of a bottle.

The second part of the book switches the POV to Cego, now reunited with the Whelps, and returns to the classrooms of the Lyceum. As with the first part, this change works very well, as we get a sense of what Cego has gone through mentally, as well as physically, and how his relationships with the Whelps has changed. We also see how the Lyceum has changed whilst he and the Whelps have been away, with the toady Callen Albright now in charge. It all builds up to a brutal final confrontation with Cego's brother, Silas the Slayer, leader of the Flux rebellion, of which he was briefly a part of, in a winner takes all fight.

It's a crescendo of a finish, one that it has been building up to over the course of the series, and Alexander Darwin pulls it off, sticking the landing! Filled with memorable and believable characters, in an expansive dystopian sci-fi world full of different races, beliefs and creatures, with spectacular authentically described brutal fight sequences (Darwin is a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt after all!), it keeps you fully engaged with a slow burn as we catch up with the timeline, but once it nears the end is full of twists and turns, unrelenting and exciting. 'Blacklight Born', as well as 'The Combat Codes' trilogy as a whole, has been an epic read. Questions were answered, and threads were tied up, but by the end, it still leaves you wanting more.

A satisfying ending to a great series that is very much recommended reading.

Note: I did receive an e-ARC edition of the book from the author in exchange for an honest review.

#CoolArt: New Cover Art for Alexander Darwin's 'Grievar's Blood' Novel

New cover art by Felix Ortiz, with cover design by Shawn T King, for 'Grievar's Blood', book 2 of 'The Combat Codes' trilogy written by Alexander Darwin.

You can read my review of the book here.

#CoolArt: New Cover Art for Alexander Darwin's 'The Combat Codes' Novel

New cover art by Felix Ortiz, with cover design by Shawn T King, for 'The Combat Codes', book 1 of the trilogy written by Alexander Darwin.

You can read my review of the book here.

Book Review: 'The Combat Codes: Book 2 - Grievar's Blood' by Alexander Darwin

The next instalment of Alexander Darwin's excellent 'Combat Codes' saga continues with 'Grievar's Blood', picking up where book 1 left off, with Cego and his team now studying at Level 2 at the Lyceum combat training school. More lessons, more deadly rivalry, more techniques and philosophies to learn that will aid them in the combat arena.

Where book one mostly followed Cego's journey from zero to hero, 'Grievar's Blood' builds upon the lore established in the first book as well as expanding on the world building, and adding new character POVs away from the Lyceum, at the Isles of Besayd and in the northern frozen wilds of Myrkos. It was great to see more of the world and the different cultures outside of just the main combat academy complex through these two character arcs. Both of these new expanded POVs, characters established in book one but not fully fleshed out, didn't feel like filler at all, but broke up and freshened the story, giving us a break from Cego's exploits at the Academy. They actually pushed the narrative as well as adding a lot of welcome depth to their character development. I really liked Sol's character arc in this book, starting out on what was a personal quest to claim and return home with the body of her father - a legendary fighter that was killed in the ring and his body now on show as part of a Daiymo collector's grisly collection - but by the end of her quest, you could see that her narrative, as well as the other POVs we follow; of Cego and of his 'brother' Silas, are all threads in a bigger story that are slowly weaving together where we'll likely see the conclusion of in book 3. A revolution is coming!

The combat is written really well and sounding detailed and authentic, which it should do considering that author, Alexander Darwin, is a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Black Belt! It is one of the many positives; fast paced and action-packed, as well as deeper character development and expanded world building, that kept me immersed and turning the pages to find out what was going to happen next!

Note: I did receive an ARC edition of the book from the author, but I really enjoyed the book, even moreso than the first, and will be looking forward to next instalment in the 'Combat Codes' saga.

#CoolArt: 'Grievar Knight And Squire' by Ryan Best

'Grievar Knight And Squire' by Ryan Best.

Artwork from 'Grievar's Blood', book 2 in 'The Combat Codes Saga' by Alexander Darwin.

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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