Science fiction is a genre of fiction in which the stories often tell about science and technology of the future. This is a very simplistic definition of the sci-fi genre. Science fiction is a broad genre in which many other sub-genres exist. It usually contains advanced technology or sciences, aliens, space travel and/or the future or alternative realities. Often compared to the fantasy genre, what sets it apart is that most of the fantastical elements in sci-fi are fundamentally plausable in the 'real' world.
Speculative fiction a term, attributed to novelist Robert Heinlein in 1941, is a sub-genre in which the basic principal of the novel is what if? The novelist will start with a question of what if x happened? and will then seek out the answer in the piece of writing. Speculative fiction is a sub-genre which exists in many of the major genre categories fantasy, science fiction or even horror.
One could justifiably say the "The Man in the High Castle" is either speculative fiction or science fiction or both. Personally I would class it as both. The man trust of the novel is the question what if the Nazis, Japanese and Italians won WW2 which would class it as a piece of the speculative fiction sub-genre. The novel takes place in an alternate reality in which this question is answered. Whilst it may not be set in the future or contain advanced tech or aliens it still fall into the science fiction genre through its use of alternate reality which maintains a level of realism.
References:
Dick, P.K. (2001; 1962). The Man in the High Castle. London: Penguin.
Lilly, N.E. (2002). What is Speculative Fiction? GreenTentacles.com. Retrieved October 7, 2014 from http://www.greententacles.com/articles/5/26
Ok Sye. You've considered a few definition of the terms Science Fiction and Speculative Fiction. At one point you suggest that Man in the High Castle fis into both, but you then (correctly) identify the novel as highly speculative. I tend to think of it as Spec-fic. Also, this is 252words - a bit short. Ok.
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