Do you mean embarrassment of characters? Hmmm, I didn't really notice that, but YMMV, of course. The first book has Hibernia's ill-fated voyage, the second isn't that great and has much more humiliation-of-Nick-by-incompetent-others, the third is set set on Hope Nation and introduces Tolliver, the fourth is on earth and lunapolis, and has more tolliver, the fifth is really not very good, the sixth isn't very good either, and he's back on form with the seventh, which wraps it up, more or less. If you're interested in giving it a go, I'd start with the first, do the third and fourth, and skip to the seventh - all the fun, far less of the filler.

Bah, I got the last two the wrong way around! The sixth, Patriarch's Hope, was the one I liked. Voices of Hope is also good, but has a bunch of new characters, whereas I'd have preferred focusing on the old ones. YMMV! (Irrespective of this, Tolliver remains awesome throughout.)