sorry that's a broad, vague question but it's a thought that's still taking shape in my mind. I'm thinking about how close these things can get to each other while still not having quite the same audience.
an example off the top of my head, just because they're two that I personally like, is Haruki Murakami's Hard-Boiled Wonderland & the End of the World and The Three Stigmatas of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. Dick.
although they're not particularly similar books, I feel like they're both fairly close to a hypothetical line between "sci-fi" and "literary surrealism*". I happen to like a pretty big cluster of things near the middle.
I can also think of people I know, though, who I would definitely recommend one to but absolutely not the other. it would feel like telling someone who liked sushi they should try pizza with anchovies on it, or vice versa.
basically they're both things I like because of somewhat similar aspects of my tastes, but I also think there are differences beyond how we're conditioned to think about genres or what the cover looks like or whatever, and I could probably tell which world an author was coming from after reading a chapter.
what makes them feel different, broadly speaking? what are the tells?
*whatever you want to call that, I'm not trying to be fancy or endorse genre snobbery, just describing how it seems like people think of these things.
by iciclefites