Series Guide
Beware of Chicken
Every book in Casualfarmer's Beware of Chicken, in order, with the verdict from a plot-first listener on the cozy cultivation series good enough to beat his own bias.
Start here
Book 1. Jin lands in a xianxia world, in the body of a cultivator being murdered by his own sect mates, and responds to everything sect culture is selling with: nope, that's a no for me, dog. He heads for the province with the least mana, buys land, and farms. Every transported-hero story flirts with this; Beware of Chicken commits.
Verdict on the series
S-mid — Worth Starting.
S-mid from a reviewer whose genre this absolutely is not. I want plot moving by chapter three, and this is by far the best slice-of-life I've listened to, good enough to beat my own bias. The engine: Jin is too good at opting out, his Earth know-how and leaking qi quietly transforming the land, waking his animals into the series' secret-weapon cast. The full review covers the rest, including where the fans and I split.
What it does best. The animal disciples, established as deep characters long before any human forms enter the picture, and a human cast (the town, the wife Jin courts, the accumulating disciples) that carries real warmth and real drama. No meaningless chapters; apparent side excursions plant details that resurface.
Where it sags. Book 4 is the low-water mark, the one entry where the stakes largely evaporate. And if you simply cannot enjoy a story without something exploding every chapter, this register will test you.
Books in order
| # | Title | Published | Runtime |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Beware of Chicken: A Xianxia Cultivation Novel | May 24, 2022 | 12 hrs 35 min |
| 2 | Beware of Chicken 2: A Xianxia Cultivation Novel | March 28, 2023 | 18 hrs 7 min |
| 3 | Beware of Chicken 3: A Xianxia Cultivation Novel | November 21, 2023 | 19 hrs 46 min |
| 4 | Beware of Chicken 4: A Xianxia Cultivation Novel | December 17, 2024 | 17 hrs 26 min |
| 5 | Beware of Chicken 5: A Xianxia Cultivation Novel | December 2, 2025 | 10 hrs 50 min |
Book data above is pulled from our full review — updated automatically as new entries publish.
Next audiobook: Book 6 has no announced title or release date yet. Book 5 arrived in December 2025 and the series has averaged a new audiobook roughly every 11 months, which points at November 2026 as the realistic window. This line updates automatically when a date is confirmed.
Travis Baldree narrates the run, and it's some of his warmest work.
Is the series complete?
No, ongoing. The wider-world tension threads (the ones Jin doesn't know about yet) are the long game, and they're why the cozy chapters keep their weight.
Where to go next
- Battle Mage Farmer (Seth Ring) — the same premise with weight and scars: cozy farming under a literal doom counter. They're better together.
- The Beginning After the End (TurtleMe) — same xianxia roots and the same narrator, opposite register: stakes and war instead of warmth.
- Heretical Fishing (Haylock Jobson) — the comparison the review draws directly, and the cautionary version: same opt-out premise, executed worse.
Full verdicts on the reviews page.