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Originally Posted by Andrew H.
I think that "alternate history" is its own genre; while I think it usually does have a sf framing device, it doesn't have to, and the book doesn't necessarily have to have any science-fiction-y or fantastic elements.
Although I think it practice the books are more similar to SF. A lot (but not all) of SF is really about the present, but extrapolated out into the future where certain technological or sociological changes have occurred, and part of the work looks at how these changes have or haven't transformed society.
Alternate history is like this, except instead of looking forward to a society transformed by technology or social change, it (sometimes) looks at how a society might be transformed by a different outcome to a historical event (i.e., Man in the High Castle). On other occasions, it will look to see how a past society might be changed by the introduction of modern technology or knowledge into the past). Those strike me as being more like sf than fantasy.
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Example: Back to the Future movie
It is alternate history/future AND scifi.
It all depends on the story itself. I have read various combinations of these genres, and although I dislike pure fantasy, I do not mind one that is a sci-fi/fantasy combo. I tend to dislike alternate history books with a few exceptions, but alternate history/future with a sci-fi twist to it does interest me. For me it has to have a sort of scifi basis before I really put much time into reading those types of stories.