SOURCE: “Harlan Ellison and Robert A. Heinlein: The Paradigm Makers,” in Clockwork Worlds: Mechanized Environments in SF, edited by Richard D. Erlich and Thomas P. Dunn, Greenwood Press: Westport, CT, 1983, pp. 97–103.

In the following essay, Sullivan compares and contrasts the paradigms established by Ellison and Heinlein with regard to the depiction of the nature of technology in works of science fiction.

Virtually all of modern science fiction depends, to some extent, upon an advanced technology—specifically, upon advanced machines. These machines may be in the forefront of the story, as they are in the “hard” science fiction descended from the novels and short stories of Jules Verne. In other science fiction, most notably in the “soft” science fiction descended from the writings of Mary Shelley and H. G. Wells, the technology is in the background, often subordinated to social commentary. The action/adventure form of science fiction, developed...