I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

  • http://thepcspy.com/ Oli Warner

    I’m a bit suspicious here, I’m not immediately convinced that this is a real advert. Hamlet adverts were ridiculously silly in the first place and a lot of people did sketches mocking them.

    This is being lauded in several places as a never-aired advert but in my mind, that sort of phrasing suggests they’ve no idea where it came from.

  • noahd

    Now I understand why R2-D2 and C-3PO felt the need to do a PSA: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWQgktBR6-w

  • Paul Renault

    Exterminate!  Exterminate!

    /no, there’s nothing ironic going on about that ad copy, eh?

    //Came back to add: The Daleks would likely hold their zigaretten vertically, as do the Nazis in the movies.

  • Jame Eral Joho

    Duh…The Daleks are EVIL…

  • CRX

    Now come on, this is not an ad promoting cigarettes.  It clearly states Hamlet cigars, now these might be wimpy 70′s movie villain cigars but they are not cigarettes.  Please try to be a little more accurate in the future.   

  • http://twitter.com/Baanrit Baanrit

    That’s just. . .  odd. . . then again there was that Flintstones one from the 50s.

  • http://northierthanthou.com/ northierthanthou

    Them and the Mooninites! Space is down for the tobacco industry!

  • douglasamcintosh

    I know I am a bit late here but this IIRC (following discussion) was possibly a sketch fro a Scottish comedy show called Naked Video.

     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_Video

    This was never shown as an actual advert though it does mimic the style perfectly. Naked Video was followed up by a show called The Baldy Man but this is more likely from Naked Video.

  • http://twitter.com/JonathanLHoward Jonathan L. Howard

    I’m inclined to think it’s a real ad, but an unaired one for obvious reasons. My main reason for thinking it’s real is that the Dalek is a custom build. Matt Irvine (legendary BBC SFX chap) costed a Dalek build at about £1000 at 1983 prices. That puts it well outside a sketch show’s budget. Besides, the BBC would never use the name of a real product; they were sticklers for that until quite recently. 
    Also, the blurb saying print ads went into things like the 1978 Dalek annual is flat out wrong. That’s a misinterpretation of a puzzle about how a bloke on a solitary posting makes his cigarette allowance last. It’s not an ad, just a puzzle on a page with two or three other old chestnuts like it given a SF spin,

  • http://twitter.com/CatLovrSebby SebastianMichaelis

    …and so the Daleks eventually ran out of tobacco on Skaro owing to their negative relations with Earth leading to a planetwide nicotine fit.