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That's get little to do with this issue and more to do with Amazon insisting of formatting rules being met.

Especially as none of Walter Jon Williams books seem to be in kindle unlimited

It sure sounds like a great way to get people to turn to the way back of the book though too..

As someone with a side project doing formatting ( www.liberwriter.com ) I can confirm that the ToC is supposed to be near the front.

You can downvote all you want, but it's right there in Amazon's guidelines:

"Place the HTML TOC towards the beginning of the book and not at the end of the book. "