I really enjoyed my time listening to the stress simulator 3000. My favourite bit was how the entire book was written like the most aggravating parts of Jurassic Park where Lex is yelling at Timmy to DO SOMETHING and Timmy shouts back IM TRYING. I really did like the twist in the very last line though.
I remember the whole thing just feeling silly by the end. "What is the Sphere?!" Um... uh... I guess it makes you a wizard or something, idk.
It's all just high fantasy couched in the thriller genre. There's no real speculative fiction. Just Original Star Trek esque "everything we don't understand must be impossible magic".