[Ulzgoroth]

Considering the order the books were written and published in, historical cumulativism doesn't mesh well. They came out in antichronological order after all...

My view is generally less that you need all of them to fill in the more persistent bits of primitive tech than that you need (or at least want) all of them to fill in the upgrades to basic concepts and previously-overlooked subject matter. Which really generalizes beyond the *-Tech series.