Blacklight Born

• Author: Alexander Darwin
• Genre: Science Fiction
• Publication Date: December 3, 2024
• Publisher: Orbit
• Series: The Combat Codes Saga #3

Thank you to Orbit and Oliver Wehner for sending me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The Grievar War has engulfed the Empire of Kiroth. Silas the Slayer has given voice and violence to his warrior kin, providing them a reason to rise up after a thousand years of servitude.

Cego is released into a war-torn world where the lines between shadow and light are blurred. He must decide which side to fight for: with his brother’s righteous rebellion or beside the family he has finally found.

Murray Pearson leads a group of Lyceum students on an adventure across Kiroth to follow the path of combat mastery. But Murray seeks something more on this long road. Redemption.

Blacklight Born is the explosive conclusion to the Combat Codes Saga, a story where all must seek a final truth as they step back into the Circle. Why do we fight?

If you’ve read book one and two, you’ll know why I was so excited to be able to get my hands on an ARC copy. However, because of everything that was going on, it took me a little to get to reading. I did a quick reread of the first two books, then jumped into this one. 

Let me start with the obvious positive—the fight scenes are one of the most well-written and exciting aspects of the book. In this futuristic world (hopefully you’ve read books 1 and 2, or there will be spoilers for those), nations have done away with the horrors of war through the use of Grievar knights, who engage in single combat on behalf of nations. Sounds fantastic, doesn’t it? Except that the system is inherently flawed. We dive even deeper into this world of the Grievars, and I loved every minute of it. We start out with the Lyceum crew, Cego and his fellow warriors, who are on their way to becoming Grievar, but the implosion of the world as they know it has interrupted their plans. So we get to see a lot of fight scenes, and every single one of them is written in a way that makes it easy and clear to follow, even for people like me, with little to no knowledge of martial arts. This kept the story fast-paced and gripping without overwhelming readers who have less familiarity with physical combat.

Sol is away on her own quest for a good half of the book, trying to achieve a goal that she felt was more important to her personally than finishing her schooling. I have always loved Sol’s character, and she really shines in this book. In the first two books, she tends to be overshadowed by Cego and some other familiar talents, but now that she’s out on her own, she gets to shine as both a warrior and a character. 

I loved seeing the progress of the characters I’ve gotten to know over the first two books, but struggled a little bit with the newer characters and not having as deep of an understanding of who they are, instead they serve a purpose to move the book along. Although I enjoyed the new characters, it was hard to connect with them as deeply as characters who were introduced earlier in the series, like Murray, Sol, Dozer, and Knees. 

Despite the immensity of the life he’s lived since leaving the island, he’s still torn by his desire to find the brothers he grew up with, and staying with the found family that he’s amassed. The goals between the two groups were opposing forces, and Cego is unable to stay neutral or easily choose a side without feeling like he is betraying someone he cares about, and most importantly, betraying the Codes he has lived his life in accordance with. But in this book, Cego undergoes some significant further development as compared to earlier books—he’s having a hard time sticking to his life path after learning more and more new information, and I loved the complex interplay of dynamics between Cego and the other characters. Watching him interact with his family and his found family, and noticing how different the relationships are was a fascinating bonus.

Overall, this was an outstanding book, and despite my difficulties in connecting as strongly with newer characters, it didn’t reflect in any way on the book or the writing—it was a me problem, especially since I had two full books with other characters to get to know them and their motivations. There was a wonderful story, and I couldn’t have asked for a better book. I’m loving the characters and how they connect with each other, as well as how all the plot lines have finally come to fruition in this masterpiece. For the most part, there isn’t a lot of loss of loved ones in the first two books, although that mainly gets saved up for this book. There were a few deaths that absolutely broke my heart, but this is a book not to miss. 

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