IIRC the second book published is an anthology, and some of those stories are good (but IIRC only two are explicitly in the setting, while the others are sci-fi that may or may not be). The Player of Games is generally considered the first good book in the series, detailing a shitty gamer bro douchebag getting coerced into going off to take part in a tournament in a highly stratified, chauvinist empire as a propaganda display, and generally growing as a person over the course of it (the book also deals heavily with gender, contrasting the egalitarian and genderfluid-as-a-norm Culture with the deeply sexist and chauvinist empire most of the story takes place in).
Unfortunately the first three books are the only ones I've read. I started the fourth one but never finished it, mostly because I read less than I should and partly because I'm not sure where it is.
IIRC the second book published is an anthology, and some of those stories are good (but IIRC only two are explicitly in the setting, while the others are sci-fi that may or may not be). The Player of Games is generally considered the first good book in the series, detailing a shitty gamer bro douchebag getting coerced into going off to take part in a tournament in a highly stratified, chauvinist empire as a propaganda display, and generally growing as a person over the course of it (the book also deals heavily with gender, contrasting the egalitarian and genderfluid-as-a-norm Culture with the deeply sexist and chauvinist empire most of the story takes place in).
Unfortunately the first three books are the only ones I've read. I started the fourth one but never finished it, mostly because I read less than I should and partly because I'm not sure where it is.