Audiobook Review – Domestication (Battle Mage Farmer, Book 1) by Seth Ring (4/5 stars)

Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Fantasy/Lit RPG
Length: 12 hours and 1 minute
Publisher:‎ Recorded Books
Release Date: May 31, 2022
ASIN: B09WRW57NW
Stand Alone or Series: 1st book in the Battle Mage Farmer series
Source: Audiobook from Audible.com
Rating: 4/5 stars

“A world on the precipice of the apocalypse. A secret forged in the flames of war. A chance to start over.
For John Sutton, only one of those three things matters.

Retired from a decade of brutal war, he wants nothing more than a quiet pastoral life while he does his best to stem the steady increase of his Doom Points before they hit 100, signaling the start of the end.
He’s been given a small farm on the outskirts of the empire as thanks for his service, but no matter how far he travels, it’s impossible to escape the war’s devastating effects on the world.

Bandits, suspicious townsfolk, a mysterious pair of siblings, and a secret that lurks in the mountains all threaten John’s peace. It will take all of his considerable power to keep from burning everything to the ground.”

Series Info/Source: This is the first book in the Battle Mage Farmer series. I borrowed this from Audible on audiobook.

Thoughts: I was looking for another LitRPG book series to listen to with my husband during driving (after finishing Dungeon Crawler Carl) and this came up in Audible. This is okay. It starts off super slow but does eventually get pretty entertaining. The RPG system and world is never explained very well. We also don’t get much information on how the main character, John Sutton, ends up in this world or about his life before ending up here.

The story follows a character named John Sutton who has been given a quest “to retire” from the RPG system on the world he found himself sent to ten years ago. He has spent his last 10 years as a battle mage in a world on the brink of destruction and is looking forward to the down time. Additionally, he has a persistent quest to “prevent the apocalypse” that he is struggling to figure out. He finds himself awarded a parcel of farmland to retire to that has two young people squatting on it and a bunch of bandits lusting after it. John must navigate the politics of this place and get the farm working, all while hiding his mage powers (because mages are outlawed now).

As I said, this moves slow…really slow especially at the beginning. However, there is some fun, dry humor throughout and the characters end up being pretty intriguing. Added to that is some adventuring to uncover lost artifacts and some decent action scenes as well. More than anything though this book is about John trying to rescue this dilapidated farm and “grow wheat” (another quest from the system). Along the way he starts to form a sort of family with the young woman and her brother that were squatting on the farm. Despite John being determined to hide from his past on this world, people from his past keep being drawn to him.

I liked the magic and the idea of balance. I also like that there are strong male and female characters in here. Some of the events that happen with the mana enhanced farm animals are pretty funny. This seems to be kind of a cozy fantasy LitRPG.

We listened to this on audiobook and struggled with it a bit because the narrator’s character voices aren’t very well balanced. John’s voice is very low and soft, while Eillie and her brother’s voice are much louder and strident. We kept having to turn the sound up and down in the car as the book was read. I would recommend reading this rather than listening to it. Hopefully future books in the series do a better job of balancing sound.

My Summary (4/5): Overall I am bit conflicted about this one. The story is very, very slow. However, I really grew to love the characters and the bits of humor in here. I like the magic system as well and am intrigued by John’s odd quests that he gets throughout. I just found myself wishing the story would speed up a bit the whole time I was listening to this. We have started listening to book 2 and it seems to be staying at this same slow pace; we will see if it speeds up at all. I would recommend readers looking for a more cozy LitRPG that don’t mind deliberate story pacing.