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SPFBO Status: Cut

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Medium: Kindle

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Overview (No Spoilers):

In Bloodlust, Zoltack has derived an interesting literary world, which packs in elves, humans, barbarians, dwarves, trolls, and goliaths into one book. Each species seems ruled by emotion and spontaneous reaction with constant bickering and fighting. The two main characters, Ivy and Lukor, are not necessarily likable due to their constantly aggressive and violent impulses, however, they definitely contain a romantic spark. I did enjoy the strong female character Zoltack portrayed in Ivy, until she decided she must employ seduction, despite loathing the target, to save her Barbarians. Ivy’s abrupt transition to desperate temptress seemed totally out of character and jarring when compared to the headstrong, impulsive, aggressive youth we’d first met. Almost every character we interacted with made multiple shortsighted, reckless moves and relied on massive jumps in logic, with often disastrous consequences. 

I did enjoy that we ended up encountering all the main species by the end of Bloodlust. That being said, we only had the briefest of interactions with the dwarves, although Ivy and Lukor’s adventure through their former domain was one of my favorite sections of the book due to the interesting situations they kept finding themselves in. Overall, Bloodlust contained a plethora of battles involving all sorts of beings from dragons and trolls, to elves and humans, but this constant state of agitation kept the reader from really connecting with any of the main characters and their dire situations. 

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Additional Insight (Spoilers Abound):

• Who was Ivy’s father? 
• Who really killed Lukor’s sister?
• Why did the weapons Lukor had collected after the first battle not contain any magic, if the staff given to him by the Skuleader did?
• Why didn’t Blue Eyes tell Ivy about the rogue elf before? Why keep him a secret, thereby dooming one or both of their races? 
• Couldn’t a human and barbarian fall in love to make more barbarians? That’s Ivy’s parentage, and she’s definitely more barbarian than not.  Blue Eyes claims that it has to be true love that defies odds to make a new species. So, is Ivy technically a new species then? 
• How did the dwarves control or capture the destroyer dreads?

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Vocabulary Builder:

Facsimile: an exact copy

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