The Slop Dealer shelf is wide; the right first book depends on what you came hungry for. No purity tests here. This is a vending machine with wires hanging out. Press the button that smells right.
If you want cozy sci-fantasy survival
Start with The Landing: Arrival, then continue to The Landing: Roots. The gentler path: first contact, practical repairs, warm meals, hybrid tools, winter prep, and a damaged ship made useful off-mission.
If you want military base-building LitRPG
Start with Phoenix Blacksite, then go to The Black Cradle. The harsher lane: a war-forge, crew triage, life-support costs, hostile flags, salvage pressure, and who gets protected when space runs out.
If you want Sydney system apocalypse
Start with Wavefall. The cleanest standalone entry: LitRPG progression fantasy set in Homebush, with tactical urban movement, socket builds, and shelter turned to territory as the city rewrites the rules.
If you want resource and space frontier nonfiction
Read The High Ground for the lunar and cislunar industrial case. Read The Deep Harvest for the Earth-first resource frontier case. Read both if you want the fight 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 for the newest drop, or watch Dragonslayer and Dealers Choice Vol. 1 for the earlier entry point. Heavy genre signals, a little grime, and a name with receipts.