At least a few of these are SF/fantasy writers. (Most of the people are children's writers/illustrators.)

https://groups.google.com/g/alt.obituaries/c/DQPmR01bV8o

Lenona wrote:
> At least a few of these are SF/fantasy writers. (Most of the people are children's writers/illustrators.)
>
> https://groups.google.com/g/alt.obituaries/c/DQPmR01bV8o

On another post in that link, you point out
https://www.literature-map.com/
one of those "people who liked A also like B" sites. A new toy to play with!

First of all, recent discussion about Vonnegut distancing himself from the sf ghetto: that seems to have worked for him, based on the input to this site. Closest to him are J.D. Salinger, John Steinbeck, and Ernest Hemingway (from that group of readers who go beyond the single book assigned in class?[1]), still-living author Haruki Murakami, and single fellow pulpster Philip K. Dick. Did Dick try to distance himself from sf later in life, or was that posthumous, after "Blade Runner"? Out beyond Hemingway are George Orwell, Oscar Wilde, and Aldous Huxley, and a bit beyond them Franz Kafka, who all hung out with the literature folks rather than in the sf genre. Further in the direction past Salinger (can I say through him?) we connect to Jack Kerouac and Hunter S. Thompson, dare I say they used drugs to acquire what Vonnegut had naturally? In the Dick direction are no other sf writers, but way out in a line threading between Murakami and Steinbeck (in the northeast corner if I run with the map metaphor) is Tolkien, and through him, Asimov. On opposite sides of that line, and a bit closer, are Ray Bradbury and Douglas Adams. And Kilgore Trout is feeling a bit left out, under a variety of his alternate names.

To raise another question: will a Steinbeck-centered page really have Isaac Asimov on it? And will Asimov's show Steinbeck? I doubt it. It is probably a question of scale. I expect Asimov to be surrounded by Clarke and Heinlein, then Pohl, Simak, and Niven, not seen in the Vonnegut map. Asimov's will be more of a city map, while Steinbeck is an overview of the county or state. Why a larger view for a more mainstream author? Could he have Steinbeckian suburbs of his own; writers in magazines of the time published for fans of the style and subjects of Steinbeck, but mercifully lost to readers of today? Another possibility is that this is not a flat map, or even a globe (or torus) map, but three-dimensional, like a star map -- or of many dimensions (theoretically some dimensions are wound tightly around themselves). Steinbeck is close to Vonnegut along some dimension, Asimov some distance away along another, but the two are further from each other than they appear.

Well, I can get on the site and check. Steinbeck does get all the non-pulp fabulists Vonnegut does, and KV and RB, but Tolkien is out at the edge, presumably with Asimov beyond. (Is there a difference if I select the name from a map of another author vs. entering it fresh? No, I don't seem to get one.) Asimov-Heinlein-Clarke are further apart than I guessed; a tri-city area with points around and in between. His map reaches to Vonnegut and Orwell, but Steinbeck is not seen. From this vantage point Tolkien is between Douglas Adams and Stephen King, rather than those two being together off to the side of the Vonnegut-Asimov line.

In some earlier post I'd asked about the mainstreamness of Bradbury and Ellison as well. Taking a look at their pages, we see Bradbury is closest --although somewhat distant from-- H.P. Lovecraft, Poe and C.S. Lewis, with a wider circle of Lewis Carroll, Kurt Vonnegut, Roald Dahl, and Arthur C. Clarke. Ellison is closest to Michael Moorcock, Robert Silverberg, and James Morrow(who?) with Zelazny and Sturgeon a bit farther. Those names have a certain association, and if most of the ranking is done by mainstream readers, we can see how they viewed them, particularly if they judge them by the company they keep. (I should say "if they judge them by the company they judge they keep," if I can get away with saying that. (Is there any language that has different third person pronouns for the party-of-the-first-part and the party-of-the-second-part?))

Out away from Bradbury on his page I see H G Wells, Herbert George Wells, and Herbert Wells in a cluster. This suggests a bit of sloppiness in data handling, although the clustering suggests it's not a great big deal. It does remind me of the most transparent pseudonym in the business: Calling him "Iain", "Iain M.", or just "Iain M" all get me to the page of Iain Banks, the name on his mainstream work. From the writers around him, either his cultured audience is not averse to genre work, or most of the responses are from his Culture audience. Alas, we cannot find how many fans of Iain Banks are fans of Iain M. Banks!

Which brings me to a game I've wanted to play for decades. But I already took too long "researching" and writing this post, and it may already be to disruptive of this thread. Maybe more, maybe later.

[1] Oh I almost forgot about the footnote. Just some questions in my mind about authors with only one of their books assigned reading. Harper Lee is the obvious, although off-topic example, but there is also William "The Lord of the Flies" Golding. I guess I wouldn't count him as an author I like unless I went further into his work.

--
-Jack