Personally speaking, I loved it, partly because it was so ridiculous in scope. You are probably right that it's good to read from back around when they depart, if not a little before, in order to preserve some degree of orientation given how convoluted it gets. I'll probably need to reread a bunch too once it zooms out from the current situations that are easier to understand.

I guess the thing that I really like about it is that, when you make the effort of really paying attention to it, it all makes sense and is engaging, whereas a lot of media falls apart when you drill down on it.