Cyberpunk, as a genre, includes a wide variety of visual aesthetics but is recognized by its encompassing theme of "high tech, low life". This became prominent in the 1980s. thanks to the works of authors like Philip K. Dick, Roger Zelazny, J. G. Ballard, Philip Jose Farmer, William Gibson and Harlan Ellison as they examined the impact of drug culture, technology, and the sexual revolution while avoiding the utopian tendencies of earlier science fiction.