[Steve S]

I suppose, as with most things, it is a matter of taste. As much as I love 'The Lord of the Rings' I never felt compelled to more than dip into the appendices (to be honest even the Silmarrilion almost defeated me!). What I loved about the book was the sweep of the story and the behaviour, interactions and choices of the characters; looking at endless genealogies doesn't really interest me. A story should be able to stand, for good or ill, on its own without the support of endless supplementary material.

I think the key point, stretching the LOTR example, is that Tolkien was able to create an incredibly convincing tale and secondary world simply within his story; he did not have to rely on the appendices to explain what was going on - if the appendices had not been included the story would not have been the worse for it. Look at 'His Dark Materials', no maps, no list of characters, no appendices, no pronunication guides, but for all its complexities it is still highly accessible to the reader.

I agree that it is crucial for the writer to know the backstory, to know all the detail of the world and characters, but in my humble opinion, genealogies, pronunication guides etc should be kept well away from the final story. But I'm sure many would disagree me and that's fair enough!