I'm currently reading A City on Mars, by that web cartoonist guy and his wife. So far they are strongly arguing that stages 1, 2, and 3 are not actually feasible and that we should wait until technology is there and jump straight to 4. Basically the only reason the ISS works is because it's next to earth, you need way more support around the crew (i.e. way more people) if you can only launch a rocket there in a launch window every two years, it takes 6 months to get there, and it's too far away to do live comms.
It's been quite good if you're into that stuff. It has a chapter on space sex, and I just read a section on how the NASA tampon thing wasn't really about how NASA engineers don't understand women, but then gives an example that shows they definitely don't but it's not because of the tampon thing.
They also specifically address the single rocket landing then add more rockets to make a city thing.