Combining the two goes way, way back. I don't think I've every been to a store that didn't put the two together. There are a number of authors who go back and forth between the two genres as well as works that blur the borders between the two. I suspect that Asimov associated fantasy with pulp works like Conan the Barbarian rather than the more literary works such as LOTR, or the precursors to LOTR. I tend to read both SF and Fantasy myself, so combining the two works pretty well for me.
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