Huntingdon said:
"Many book readers would say that they would find that off-putting..." Care to cite a survey for that comment? You've had five or so posters here say they would appreciate such a thing. Not so many pure readers saying they wouldn't...
Pocket Books put thought into the dropping of numbered books when it was realised that more people found the then-high numbers a hindrance than the rest of the readership.
General science fiction does not typically carry
dramatis personae, chronologies, footnotes or glosseries; the use is actually quite judicious. For reasons, not whims.
As for being daunting or too long - it's not something that need be kept up.
I didn't mean "daunting" for the writers and editors, or the need for continued updates, I meant "daunting" for new readers. There are many obstacles that can cause a browser to put a book back on the shelf, having originally been entranced by the cover art: blurb; price; thickness; font size; high book numbers in a series; Part 2 of a series; complete booklists of "What you missed previously and now can't find because many are out-of-print"; and "How much do I need to know before I can enjoy this?"
I haven't conducted such a survey here, but the people who come
here are not casual browsers in shops but the devoted fans - so you can't use their opinions as the yardstick here. But I'm positive that Marco and Margaret have access to such market research.
I have been an editor myself, of a professional journal in education, and as part of an editorial team of a large-circulation amateur ST newsletter. We did do annual research/surveys, and the list of what people found to be off-putting was amazing and, often, contradictory. For example, people would say, "You need to cram more text into the wasted white space to increase value for money", and yet professional research proved that people's comprehension recall, and amount of magazine read in one sitting, both increased expotentially when the layout had generous white space.
All of this gets weighed up.
As a fan, I'd like a "Titan"
dramatis personae, too, but I do understand why there hasn't been one. Yet. Casual readers may be very put off by a
dramatis personae.
As I also said here recently, I happened to be reading a piece of non ST, non SF, literature recently where the author did not bother to remind us of the physical appearance and unique skills of a large group of humans. Even when it became essential to know who was who.
Many of the times people here complain they'd forgotten what certain "Titan" aliens looked like, in scenes where it wasn't essential to know those characters' physical appearances or unique skills. But when it is important, the authors do usually add those details. In context.
