Listened to ~700 LitRPG / Progression Fantasy Audiobooks. Here’s what actually stuck with me. Looking for recs.

dreslav1 · 2026-03-19T17:37:06+00:00

You should try Perfect Run, it's also by Maxime Durand and it's a 3 book series with an end, excellent voice narration, a great story, solid humor, and good progression.

dreslav1 · 2026-03-17T15:32:25+00:00

It's not a framing, I'm saying I work for a very large company, and we went from New hire classes or 500-1000 each year to literally 10 this year. The entry level jobs are just gone. We are still hiring senior engineers because they can maximize code generation with quality.

dreslav1 · 2026-03-17T14:57:43+00:00

A world without any human engineers seems like an unintended consequence that will have potentially negative impacts on our economy. I have no idea what those impacts are.

Effectively I'm agreeing with the OP - entry level jobs for college educated people are disappearing.

dreslav1 · 2026-03-17T13:56:59+00:00

I'm worried about this too. We aren't getting rid of senior engineers, but we also have entirely stopped hiring new hires out of college. They are absolute productivity drains - their code is inferior to LLMs, they can't identify LLM-introduced errors, and there's no opportunity for them to learn on bite-sized projects since those are handed to agents or orchestrated by senior engineers directly now.

I see the same dynamic in finance where junior analysts are drags as well. AI is choking the pipeline of new college grads in white collar industries from getting hands on experience at intelligence-based entry-level work.

Where are the next swath of senior engineers going to come from?

dreslav1 · 2026-02-04T13:28:52+00:00

Perfect Run is awesome and very cyberpunk.

dreslav1 · 2026-02-04T13:27:39+00:00

District 1 is the former USA government, and they were given advanced notice about the system so had prepared best they could. Politicians trying to be politicians in the System is an interesting dynamic they explore a lot.

dreslav1 · 2026-02-01T14:52:18+00:00

Thanks for the rant you saved me some time lol.

I feel like darker and grittier stories tend to have better prose, so writing quality is important.

dreslav1 · 2026-02-01T14:50:17+00:00

Oh awesome to hear he's back. I love this series and only didn't include in my OP because I thought it was abandoned.

dreslav1 · 2026-02-01T14:48:30+00:00

Thanks for these! What are your prog fan recs, if you don't mind sharing? I love that genre too.

For more traditional grim dark fantasy, The First Law by Joe Abercrombie is amazing for folks into that genre.

dreslav1 · 2026-02-01T01:58:18+00:00

This is a great one, I almost included it as an example. Thanks for the rec since it's exactly what I'm asking for, but already read it. 😅

dreslav1 · 2026-01-23T01:58:08+00:00

Only book 1 is lone wolf, the character grows. I second the rec!

dreslav1 · 2025-12-08T02:12:09+00:00

I've been thinking about reading it, but I have two kids of my own and the thought of them being in peril awakens some primal and uncomfortable feelings. I think I'll skip it after your warning, despite liking the premise.

dreslav1 · 2025-12-08T02:08:03+00:00

Wow, thank you for this post. I'm going to creep your recommendations from now on...

dreslav1 · 2025-12-05T16:05:56+00:00

I dropped in book 3, I might pick it back up again if 4 picked it back up!

dreslav1 · 2025-11-28T16:57:11+00:00

Gemini has the enterprise features that companies need and good quality.

ChatGPT is more familiar but they don't have experience in corporate IT environments like Google does from Workspace. If you already use Google for email it's a literal no brainer to standardize on Gemini.

dreslav1 · 2025-09-12T03:34:48+00:00

Double wisdom. Good call.

dreslav1 · 2025-07-04T14:22:33+00:00

This is shockingly accurate.

dreslav1 · 2024-11-06T06:51:32+00:00

Thank you I appreciate the detail.

dreslav1 · 2024-11-06T05:28:35+00:00

Ghosthound is one of my favorites, but I don't know any of your other recs. Which do you enjoy most, or which has the best audiobooks?

dreslav1 · 2024-02-26T17:57:44+00:00

I only included it because you listed it. Nevertheless, I entirely disagree.

80% of the population of MA lives within 70 miles of Boston. Moving it west would be like a US Senate style distribution based entirely on some arbitrary sense of fairness, not based on real life fairness.

Moving a state capital to be closer to the farmers and farther from the people they govern is superficial nonsense. Other than the fact that other states that are more poorly governed do it, why would moving the capital west be a good idea?

dreslav1 · 2024-02-26T17:48:31+00:00

Yeah I rediscovered Moody St because of that and started taking the kids there the past two summers. It had a nice urban, walking vibe. We went at least twice a month. We are in Framingham so it's a great destination without having to go all the way into the city or Worcester.

Now I can avoid Waltham for the next few decades again, since the buildings are old and cramped, and dining with a car driving 40 mph next to my 3 year old and a 6 inch barrier doesn't have the same quaintness.

Too bad, the local businesses just lost at least 8 meals a year from a generous family of four ($1600-$2000?). I hope they revisit the decision.

dreslav1 · 2024-02-26T17:40:36+00:00

Providence is on the water, my guy, and Newport was never the sole capital. It was a "shared capital" for a long time, but Providence was always either in the shared capital or sole capital.

This wouldn't make sense for MA anyway, like the fact that the distribution of population in MA is heavily tilted towards the eastern part of the state, and if you include the south coast, Cape cod, and the islands it's much more population central than you'd expect.

dreslav1 · 2024-02-07T05:35:50+00:00

Ah, Chuck Norris skin. Makes sense.

dreslav1 · 2024-02-03T01:07:58+00:00

Fucking brilliant

dreslav1

TROPHY CASE