shows that Asimov was indeed the same writer in the 1970s that he had been in the 1950s and that he nonetheless had been affected by the New Wave even if he was never part of it. His depiction of an alien ménage a trois, complete with homoerotic scenes between the two males, marks an interesting departure from his earlier fiction, in which sex of any sort is conspicuously absent. Also there is some minor experimentation with structure. Other themes dealt with in the novel are concerns for the environment and "human stupidity and the delusional belief in human superiority", both frequent topics in New Wave SF. Still other commentators ascribe a much greater effect to the New Wave. Commenting in 2002 on the publication of the 35th Anniversary edition of Ellison's Dangerous Visions anthology, the critic Greg L. Johnson remarked that ...if the New Wave did not entirely revolutionize the way SF was written, (the exploration of an invented world through the use of an adventure plot remains the prototypical SF story outline), they did succeed in pushing the boundaries of what could be considered SF, and their use of stylistic innovations from outside SF helped raise standards. It became less easy for writers to get away with stock characters spouting wooden dialogue laced with technical jargon. Such stories still exist, and are still published, but are no longer typical of the field. Asimov agreed that "on the whole, the New Wave was a good thing". He described several "interesting side effects" of the New Wave. Non-American SF became more prominent and the genre became an international phenomenon. Other changes noted were that "the New Wave encouraged more and more women to begin reading and writing science fiction... The broadening of science fiction meant that it was approaching the 'mainstream'... in style and content. It also meant that increasing numbers of mainstream novelists were recognizing the importance of changing technology and the popularity of science fiction, and were incorporating science fiction motifs into their own novels." Critic Rob Latham identifies three trends that associated New Wave with the emergence of cyberpunk during the 1980s. He said that changes of technology as well as an economic recession constricted the market for science fiction, generating a "widespread" malaise among fans, while established writers were forced to reduce their output (or, like Isaac Asimov, shifted their emphasis to other subjects); finally, editors