Novels with advertising?

[FreddyE]

Has anybody ever come across Trek novels that included advertising?

This happend to me only once and it was disgusting. It was a TNG Novel, where Data becomes human. In one chapter he uses the replicator to order soup. It went something like this:

Data ordered some hot soup from the replicator. - Interlude - While Data is getting something to eat, why not take a break and treat yourself to some nice hot 5-Minute Instant Soup (Insert your local brand of redicously overpriced instant garbage here)?


The advertising wasn´t a flyer or anything like that, it was printed in the regular font of the novel and inserted right into the text flow.

Thoughts?

 

[Therin of Andor]

Has anybody ever come across Trek novels that included advertising?

I thought you meant the one-page ads for the Official Fan Club, or SF lit magazine subscriptions, or the novel backlist.

This happend to me only once and it was disgusting. It was a TNG Novel, where Data becomes human. In one chapter he uses the replicator to order soup. It went something like this:

Data ordered some hot soup from the replicator. - Interlude - While Data is getting something to eat, why not take a break and treat yourself to some nice hot 5-Minute Instant Soup (Insert your local brand of redicously overpriced instant garbage here)?

Sounds like a joke to me. I have read "Metamorphosis" twice, but a looooong time ago, and I can't say I remember such a scene.

It doesn't even sound like Jean Lorrah's sense of humour to me, although this novel did suffer through its problems with Richard Arnold - and I guess it's possible that it was an in-joke he didn't notice, and people forgot to remove... like the "R. Arnold" tombstone in a Peter David Comic Annual (DC Series I, #3).

http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Soup

"When the Elysian 'gods' made Data fully Human in 2365, Doctor Katherine Pulaski suggested that Data make soup his first meal, as to avoid overloading his virginal digestive system. When Data finally had a chance to peruse the replicator's soup menu, he was astounded at the variety of soups that humanoids could recognize." (TNG novel: Metamorphosis)

 

[FreddyE]

It was the german translation and it really looked like something put in by the editor of the german edition. And it was for a real product too.

 

[Therin of Andor]

It was the german translation and it really looked like something put in by the editor of the german edition.

Well, that would have been a helpful bit to add. It's tricky for Paramount, the Star Trek Officer and Viacom-now-CBS Products to scrutineer all manuscripts that aren't in English.

 

[Defcon]

^ Yeah, they did that for a while.

But it's not like it is not easily identifiable as advertising:

 

[Christopher]

That's really weird. It had all those blacked-out lines like a classified memo?

 

[Defcon]

That's really weird. It had all those blacked-out lines like a classified memo?

Yep, took those pics of my copy of Metamorphosis just a couple minutes ago, and it certainly wasn't me who blacked out those lines.

Probably some kind of requirement for being allowed to do the ads. That way it is easily recognizable as not belonging to the actual novel.

 

[Sho]

What a hilarious little artifact ... and it's so odd that they'd pick an android of all the characters to enjoy their soup product.

Maybe if it was Picard: "Computer, tea ... belay that, 5 Minuten Terrine, hot."

 

[Defcon]

Well it's a novel where he is transformed into a human, so it makes sense. It was done in some other novels as well. For example I remember for some odd reason that in one Uhura was the one eating (or craving?) the soup.

 

[JD]

I've never seen anything like that in a novel before. Is/was this common in Germany?

 

[Sho]

I've never encountered that anywhere, at least. I doubt readers took kindly to it.

 

[tomswift2002]

With the ad, did they actually make it "flow" with the rest of the story though? Or did it feel like you were reading MacBeth and you got to one of the scenes with Hecate where the "flow" completely changed?

 

[Tiberius]

Has anybody ever come across Trek novels that included advertising?

This happend to me only once and it was disgusting. It was a TNG Novel, where Data becomes human. In one chapter he uses the replicator to order soup. It went something like this:

Data ordered some hot soup from the replicator. - Interlude - While Data is getting something to eat, why not take a break and treat yourself to some nice hot 5-Minute Instant Soup (Insert your local brand of redicously overpriced instant garbage here)?


The advertising wasn´t a flyer or anything like that, it was printed in the regular font of the novel and inserted right into the text flow.

Thoughts?

I'd hardly call that an advertisement.

It's in Metamorphosis, page 153 at the bottom and going over to the next page. In all, it's four lines, describing thirteen varieties of soup. None of them are brand names.

You're reading WAY too much into it. Calm down and just read the book. And stop seeing conspiracies to sell you soup.

EDIT. Why didn't you say German version and provide the screenshots from the beginning? Although I note with interest that the paragraph sizes in the blacked out sections match perfectly with the paragraphs on the opposite page.

 

[Therin of Andor]

EDIT. Why didn't you say German version and provide the screenshots from the beginning?

Well FreddyE was working from memory. It sounded like he didn't have the book handy. Defcon kindly supplied the bizarre ads.

Now that we've seen them we, too, can find them hard to believe.

I've seen clever ads in magazines that pretended to be articles, but these are... weird.

 

[James Swallow]

I remember Diane Duane telling me about a similar thing in the German edition of one of her TOS novels, where a Romulan Commander stops off to make soup in the middle of an exposition scene...

 

[Mimi]

Haha, that's actually a really interesting find. I am torn between being horrified, and wanting to track down copies of these books for posterity.

 

[Elias Vaughn]

This sounds hilarious and I wish we got these in English.

 

[R. Star]

Before we know it Chevy will be listed as manufacturing the Enterprise... and Ford got the shuttle contract... which would explain a lot of the accidents.

 

[Elias Vaughn]

"Tea, Earl Gr- no, this situation demands an alternative. Computer, coffee, Folger's Instant Crystals, hot."

 

[Christopher]

"We've replaced Mr. Scott's dilithium crystals with Folger's Crystals. Let's see if he can tell the difference."