The Slop Dealer shelf is broad enough that the right first book depends on what you came hungry for. There is no purity test at the door. This is a vending machine with wires hanging out of it. Press the button that smells correct.
If you want cozy sci-fantasy survival
Start with The Landing: Arrival, then continue to The Landing: Roots. This is the gentler path: first contact, practical repairs, warm meals, hybrid tools, winter preparation, and a damaged ship becoming useful to people who were not in the mission plan.
If you want military base-building LitRPG
Start with Phoenix Blacksite, then go to The Black Cradle. This lane is harsher: a war-forge, crew triage, air and heat costs, hostile classification, salvage pressure, and the recurring question of who gets protected when the base cannot protect everyone at once.
If you want Sydney system apocalypse
Start with Wavefall. It is the cleanest single-book fiction entry right now: a LitRPG progression fantasy built around Homebush, tactical urban movement, socket-driven build choices, and the problem of turning shelter into territory while the city keeps changing the rules.
If you want resource and space frontier nonfiction
Read The High Ground if you want the lunar and cislunar industry case. Read The Deep Harvest if you want the Earth-first resource frontier case. Read both if you want the argument between upward ambition and downward industrial density to get weirdly expensive.
If you want the music before committing
Start with Slop Dealer in the Asylum if you want the newest music drop, or watch Dragonslayer and Dealers Choice Vol. 1 for the earlier route in. They are the quick music path into the project: heavy genre signals, a little grime, and a name that behaves like it has receipts in its coat pocket.