Just finished Gridlinked which was the earliest Polity book I could find.

It still felt like I was reading a sequel. Apparently Asher published some short stories before this one...ugh.

Entertaining, though. It partly had a "007 in space" feel, mixing in a subplot with an alien intelligence manipulating the main character, a villain hell-bent on revenge, and even a surprise (and surprisingly heartwarming) romance between two supporting characters.

I'm in the middle of Restoree by Anne McCaffrey. This one has some elements of mystery, mistaken identity, and political intrigue. It's painfully 60s (which, ok, fair, that's when it was published).

I'm about to start another Robin Hobb "Assassin" novel (part 2 in the last trilogy), and I have Resolute by Jack Campbell queued up. It's another entry in a long line of what I call "Space Captain Popsicle" when talking with my wife. The basic premise is that the main character was in a coldsleep escape pod from his starship for about a century. He gets picked up before its power fails by an allied battle fleet and ends up commanding the fleet in a desperate flight from deep inside enemy territory. Great space battles, infuriating interstellar politics, fascinating glimpses of aliens in a few spots. It's quite a lot of fun :D