His very last book has Esk in it. I understand the view, I just don't agree. It has lots of nice subtle jokes in it and was the first to have a bit more depth

His very last book has Esk in it. I understand the view, I just don't agree. It has lots of nice subtle jokes in it and was the first to have a bit more depth to the story rather than being a slightly scattered and episodic parody of thr fantasy genre. But then I like Dark Side and Strata a lot too. Edit to add: incidentally there are a lot of minor throwaway jokes throughout the series that require you to have read the preceding books to get them. That in itself is IMO enough reason to aim to read them in publication order. But you do you, he was very prolific, I can see why someone coming in after the fact might choose not to tackle the whole lot from beginning to end.