{"version": "1.0", "type": "rich", "title": "Who can forget those scenes in Count Zero where they all stand around eating soup?", "author_name": "kontextmaschine", "author_url": "https://kontextmaschine.com", "provider_name": "kontextmaschine", "provider_url": "https://kontextmaschine.com", "url": "https://kontextmaschine.com/post/183159346733/", "html": "Who can forget those scenes in Count Zero where they all stand around eating soup?\n

femmenietzsche:

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\nBack in the 1980s, the giant German sf publisher Heyne tried out an experimental partnership with a soup company Maggi (they\u2019re still around), and it was bonkers.\n

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\nUnder the terms of the deal, science fiction novels would be \nperiodically interrupted by scenes in which the characters would drop \neverything and start eating Maggi soups, smacking their lips and \nexclaiming over just how delicious they were.\n

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\nBut to keep readers from confusing the soup ads with the novels, these \nscenes would be set in different type and set off with other weird \ntextual flourishes. \n

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\nTo German sf fans of a certain vintage, these Maggi ads are legendary:\n I first heard tell of them from Tim Powers, who told me how he\u2019d been \nleafing through a German edition of one of his books and discovered this\n weird stuff and asked a German fan about it and been told, \u201cOh, those \nare the soup ads, of course!\u201d\n

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\nOf course.\n

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I remember hearing about (and from secondhand stores reading) 70s-80s American paperbacks with glossy Newport \u201cAlive With Pleasure!\u201d inserts

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