Darak the Minotaur: Volume 1

by J.A. Flynn, Ankit Roy (editor)

After his home is burned to the ground, a hulking minotaur goes on new and dangerous adventures. Featuring orcs, goblins, a witch and a sadistic dragon. Inspired by Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian.
Previously published on Wattpad, these stories have been newly polished and edited, along with artwork and author's notes.

338 pages, Paperback

Published September 2, 2022

About the author

Born in July, 1993-but was meant to be born Halloween, J.A. Flynn is an author of short stories, novellas and novels.

Through his school years being in special education due to having autism and developmental disabilities, he enjoyed writing projects the most, he started with movie reviews and wanted to be a filmmaker. In high school, he discovered the furry fandom and self-published a short story starring a wolf which was in the school library.

​​​After graduating, he discovered a passion for the pulp adventure stories of the 1930s which became a huge source of inspiration. Though he will always branch out into different genres.

​​​His favorite author is Robert E. Howard.


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Reviews

[Captain Comic Book · Rating 1 out of 5]

This author needs an editor or even an honest friend to read their work desperately. The kindest thing I can do is keep this brief, so I will. The book is chock-full of spelling, grammar, and and consistency issues. The author can't seem to keep track of what tense they're using. The story is full of things that are just overtly wrong or ridiculous that a little research would have gone a long way to prevent. Even the best parts of the book have plot holes a minotaur could stand in, and there are just lots of problems with the writing that even a cursory reading by anyone else would have turned up. For example, the time the female lead Sona, climbed down from her horse, said something, then leapt from her horse. To say the least, the whole book reads like a 13 year old wants everyone to be as in love with and/or horny for their fursona as they are. Trying to make a Conan or Red Sonja-like character is a great idea, but this author really needs to hone their writing skills before writing anything else. And, again, get an editor. Badly.

[Ankit Roy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Flynn has a gift for creativity. His characters jump off the page and he can create fantastic and complex people without the need to babble about their past lives that bore the readers to death. His stories are straightforward and well paced. He writes with ease, stuff like action, sex, blood and gore. Believe me when I say it’s difficult to write blood & gore. However, I do hope he explores writing with more sensual details, details that take me ‘there’. The smells, the odd sounds, the fascinating sights. As a reader I want the fiction to be real. The author did a great job invoking the land where Darak fares but sometimes I just sensed a writer doing the job.
Overall I enjoyed the fantasy world of Darak and relished his adventures.
I’ll rate it 4/5.

[Amber Lane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow! I love this character! Darak the Minotaur is a sympathetic character who goes through a lot. This book does have J.A. Flynn's trademark creature vibes, but it's a lot more action packed. Some of the prose could use work, but I totally love this world.

[Lance Pomeroy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very cool stories. Darak is a unique hero. Plagued by special needs and autism in a time where such things weren't known-the Minotaur has unique challenges. He battles evil, he goes to bed with men, women, creatures. Very violent at times, but also very up on LGBTQ+ knowledge. This is Conan for the modern era.

[J.A. Flynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am so damn proud of my minotaur character. He was inspired by many people I know in the disability community. He's kind and strong, but also has a speech pattern issue and often needs extra help. Mixing Conan the Barbarian and something like Rain Man is quite a task.