Footnoted SciFi & Fantasy*
*SFF novels which use footnotes as a secondary narrative, paratext, or metacommentary on events in the main narrative.
created by kateesreads
last updated May, 2026
Comments
Love this list so much!!!! If you are open to recs 10/10 recommend Chain Gang All Stars! It's the first book where the footnotes made me cry - they are very cleverly used!
ooh yes I forgot it had them! they were good... the eulogies, millitary tech ads, statistics and laws all sharing the same space was strong, tho I did think it kind of meant the footnotes didn't necessarily have one sense of paratextual purpose... think that's partially just bc you've got the limits of the print format, I suppose, they'd have had to have gotten dead creative w the layout to split them all up. I guess also making them all footnotes created the sense that they're all 'small print' and a skippable bit of extra information; the ads are technically optional, but have an insidious presence you can't get rid of (although they fade away by about the halfway point of the book iirc...), the legal histories and statistics are trivia rather than anything which is being deployed effectively, etc. yeah they were really cleverly done.
I don’t come across them often but i love it when I do!!! What a fun list idea for a list!
Oh I love this idea! Very cool.
I love this so much! I love a good book with footnotes. 🥰
A list I did not know I needed! I am guilty of skipping nonfiction footnotes but you bet I'll read every single fictional one.
