> I *hate* the increasingly common practice of putting huge indexes and glossaries and pronunciation guides at the back (or in any other location) of fiction books. I'm not really sure why.
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> It mostly happens in science fiction or fantasy epics (the sort you need a forklift to take home from the bookshop), reflecting the demand that authors of such books create a Total World Experience rather than just a, well, book. Same goes for maps.
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> It seems to be part of the whole fandom thing: you can't just *read the book* and like it, you have to act like it's a new religion. Learn the languages! Debate what that scene *really* meant! Dress up as characters and go to conventions! There's nothing wrong with this as such, but there seems so little scope for imagination. Everything is handed to you on a plate.
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> Also, it always makes me think the author is taking things way too seriously, and needs to go have a lie down and watch some comedy tapes.

Heh. I happen to agree with Brunnen-G, there, about the ridiculous extremes to which publishers embellish the works of successful authors. Whenever I pick up a fantasy or mainstream fiction tome and notice that it has 1) annotated maps next the frontspiece; 2) a long and tedious dramatis personae of characters; 3) historical appendices; and 4) a detailed prounciation index, I put the book down immediately and run in the other direction. For what it's worth, the entirety of this *excess* turns the book into a bad, quasi-historical textbook. Anyone flipping through the book immediately gets the impression that Wow, here's a novel that has to be STUDIED in order to be fully appreciated. GAH. If I read fiction -- good fiction -- it's because I want to be entertained, for pete's sake. Should there be a topic of interest in the book that does merit study in greater depth, we can research it more fully on our own, thank you very much. I much prefer the simple, unobtrusive format which Michael Crichton has occasionally put in the endpiece of some of his novels -- it's simply a short list of technical/historical references which he used while researching his story.

I don't know why so many fantasy novels are subjected to the bloat of having a map/index/pronounication "package". I would hazard, however, that the blame is not necessarily due to the author. The americanization of Rowling's "Harry Potter" books demonstrates just how tight the distributor's hold is... over the format, presentation, and style of the books. The editorial voice has an even stronger say in determining whether a novel gets published in the first place. As I understand it, the editors of both Anthony Burgess' "Clockwork Orange," and Frank Herbert's "Dune" initially refused to publish the manuscripts, until the authors provided glossary guides for the special languages in those two books. In Herbert's case this was a particularly vacuous requirement -- anyone with even a modest familiarity with the Bible and Qur'an would have immediately recognized that the languages in Dune are Hebrew and Arabic (the "Muad'dib as Messiah" is a dead giveaway.) In Burgess' case, well, he was just cheezed off by the whole editor thing. Nuts. The eds want "everything handed to the reader on a plate." How much intellectual stagnation, and death of imagination, are we willing to tolerate in this society... when editors and directors and TV producers insist that *everything* be explained in terms no more explicit than the elementary Grade 8 level?