The Rifters trilogy (quadrilogy?) is kind of rough. They were his first published novels, and there's a kind of awkward gear-shift between the previously publis

The Rifters trilogy (quadrilogy?) is kind of rough. They were his first published novels, and there's a kind of awkward gear-shift between the previously published material (much of the first novel was a fixup of "A Niche" and other short stories) to newly written content. There's some interesting stuff in there -- if you've previously read the Firefall novels you'll recognize some early versions of ideas and motifs which he develops more fully in the later series -- but ultimately I'd describe it as skippable.