[jenna]

I only read glossaries, family trees, appendixes etc if I've become so completely enamoured with the world and the story by the end of the book that I'm aching for even a little bit more. Otherwise I would probably just skim it. The problem with them, as I see it - if you put them at the start of the story one is not involved in the story yet, and therefore has no reason to care about the intricacies of the world. If you add footnotes I will hate you, as I hate footnotes! I don't want to stop reading the story if I'm immersed in it, but then I have the nagging feeling that I'm missing something. Putting them at the end, they can only really compliment the story after one has finished it, as there's every chance that people will miss that it's even there.

I second the idea that this is information you can add into the story itself, using dialogue, POV's etc. It will just take a little more work and skill than it would if you just throw it all in a glossary at the end. And give your readers a bit more credit, assume that they're not that dense that they need everything spelled out for them and that they couldn't work things out for themselves with a few well-placed clues...