Luckly it's a temporary drop - book 4 (the one on the colony right?) is by far the worst part of the series and the next pair of books return back to the politicking and Holden being naive and kicked in the head due to it :) Also the story really starts tying up and gets better pacing.
I read them all and I'll probably read the next one, question for a fellow reader: am I the only one who absolutely hates Holden? He doesn't really seem to have developerd or grown up al all, he routinely puys whiney personal issues over the lives of billions and etc.
Things get rather interesting in 5&6 though. Scale gets quite good!
