Is old speculative Sci Fi now alt history

[Just plain Craig]

Can we consider books written in say 1950 about 1990 now alternate history......

[Beedok]

Yes, at least if we were to do anything with it.

[Mitro]

No, it is just outdated science fiction. There was no intent by the author to change history, just predict a possible future, so it can't be alternate history.

[Beedok]

No, it is just outdated science fiction. There was no intent by the author to change history, just predict a possible future, so it can't be alternate history.
But if we where to write a fan-fic or figure out how it could have happened that would be AH.

[Mitro]

But if we where to write a fan-fic or figure out how it could have happened that would be AH.

The fan-fic or a scenario that derives from the outdated sci fi would be AH then, but not the original work itself.

[Color-Copycat]

I like calling it "honorary alternate history", especially for stuff written in the late 19th century by Wells and Verne. Although it might've seemed like future history to the readers at the time, Wells's "The War in the Air" now reads like an ASB alternate WWI replete with space filling empire/alliances and airship battles over Niagara Falls.

[Jasen777]

I'd call it paleofuture.

[Alex Richards]

I'd call it paleofuture.

Paleofuture and a large section of of Sci-Fi which features nuclear wars in the 80s or massive space colonisation in that era are both good candidates for a sort of 'honorary AH', along with early works that are less AH than a general open speculation.

[Sicarius]

There was never a seaman called Ishmael who hunted a white whale with a Captain Ahab. Therefore, Moby Dick is alternate history.

[Beedok]

There was never a seaman called Ishmael who hunted a white whale with a Captain Ahab. Therefore, Moby Dick is alternate history.
That is just fiction. Unless there is significant world building (not character developpement) then it isn't really AH.

[Klisz]

http://wiki.alternatehistory.com/doku.php/alternate_history_faq#outdated_fiction

[Sicarius]

Gonna pop in a blu-ray of the alternate history classic The Fellowship of the Ring tonight.

[Sicarius]

I don't mean to be snarky (okay that's a lie), but I think classifying things like old sci-fi as alternate history is a reach. I don't see any reason to try and annex things never intended as alternate history into the genre.

But shit, if it makes you happy then go nuts. It's not a big deal either way.

[zoomar]

Absolutely not! And that is what most other "experts" in Alternate History as a literary form would say as well. To be "alternate history" the fiction must have been written with that as the intent from the beginning.

Now, on the other hand, there is nothing to prohibit someone taking an outdated future history (like nuclear war novels set in the 1980's, various dystopias like "1984" or any other scenarios that have been overtaken by events) and turning them into alternate history by writing new stories based in these time lines, but the original works are simply not alternate history.

[JSmith]

Can we consider books written in say 1950 about 1990 now alternate history......
Officially they may not be but so what? Treating them that way is interesting and fun and maybe can produce some new threads that dont involve the letters ISOT.

[B_Munro]

Personally, I think much of old SF can now be read and enjoyed as fantasy: Barsoom is more entertaining than a lot of fairylands... :)

Bruce