Posted in: Books, Netflix, Pop Culture, Stranger Things, TV | Tagged: Caitlin Schneiderhan, Eddie Munson, Joseph Quinn, netflix, Penguin Random House, stranger things, Stranger Things: Flight of Icarus

Stranger Things Prequel Novel Offers More Eddie Munson Backstory

Dropping this month, Caitlin Schneiderhan's novel Stranger Things: Flight of Icarus offers more of rocker & gamer Eddie Munson's backstory.

It's surprising given how massive The Duffer Brothers' Stranger Things truly is – not because the Netflix series predominantly takes place in the fictional small town of Hawkins, Indiana, but because of the larger-than-life characters it produced. Among the most popular new characters in season four in the ever-growing cast was Joseph Quinn's rocker and Dungeons & Dragons enthusiast Eddie Munson. After a series of supernatural murders, poor Eddie finds himself framed and on the lamb, thanks to the nefarious and powerful Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower), who's able to impose his will from the Upside-Down into the real world.

Stranger Things Season 4 Recap

In the case is the Hawkins youths led by Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), Will (Noah Schapp), Mike (Finn Wolfhard), Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo), Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin), Max (Sadie Sink), Nancy (Natalia Dyer), Jonathan (Charlie Heaton), Steve (Joe Keery), and Robin (Maya Hawke) while the adults in Joyce (Winona Ryder) and Murray (Brett Gelman) attempt to rescue Hopper (David Harbour) from a Soviet prison. The leader of Hawkins' High roleplaying student organization, the Hellfire Club, reluctantly joins the group to clear his name and to stop the Vecna. Readers now can learn more about his backstory story in Caitlin Schneiderhan's upcoming prequel novel Stranger Things: Flight of Icarus from Penguin Random House. It will have to do since we won't know anything about season five of Stranger Things for some time as Hollywood and SAG-AFTRA are burning the midnight oil to get season five going.

Flight of Icarus follows a record producer named Paige, who gives Eddie and his band, Corroded Coffin, the chance to fulfill their rock & roll dreams. The excerpt finds Eddie entering a recording studio for the first time and telling Paige how his late mom got him hooked on music. She had grown up in Memphis, where she met Eddie's dad, who turned out to be a schemer. They eventually moved to Hawkins, and while Al taught his son how to play guitar, it was his mom who taught him how to love music, sharing all the records she listened to on the nine-hour drive from Memphis. She eventually got sick and died when Eddie was 6 years old. Entertainment Weekly was provided an exclusive excerpt from the Stranger Things novel, which is set to release just in time for Halloween on October 31st.

I see the door.

It's open, just a crack, just far enough for me to peer through. And inside —

The drum kit is the first thing I spot. Then the rugs laid out on top of one another, stacked high on the floor. Then the spindly leg of a microphone stand. And then I'm pushing the door open and stepping into an honest-to-God recording studio for the first time in my life.

It's not a big space, but even with all the equipment and the instruments and the scarfed raped lamps, it doesn't feel cramped. My sneakers scuff across the layered carpets with a shushing sound that feels too loud, and I realize that the room is completely soundproofed. Wanting to test this, I tap my fingernail against the hi-hat and grin at the raspy chk-chk-chk that follows.

It strikes me hard, like, right between the eyes, standing here in the middle of this stack of carpets, cushioned air pushing in on all sides. I'm in a recording studio. A real one. I've only ever seen them in pictures or in movies — glossy photographs plastered across old issues of Rolling Stone, or grainy making-the-band snippets on MTV. But this isn't two-dimensional. It's not low-fi. It's —

"It's kind of a shithole."

The words come, staticky and broken and way too loud, through the intercom set into the ceiling overhead. I look up, startled, to find Paige watching me through the observation window. She's standing in the control room, leaning over the audio console. It's dark on her side of the glass, but the warm light from the studio illuminates her face, making her skin glow like she's got the sun burning somewhere inside.

"Hah," I say, and then realize that, with all the soundproofing, she can't hear me unless I'm talking into the mic. I lean closer and try again. "Yeah." It's the best I can manage without admitting the fact that, inside, I'm completely freaking out. This place might be a shithole, sure. It could be Abbey Road, and I'd be having the same reaction. I'm standing in a recording studio, like a real honest-to-God rock star. Did Munson Junior ever think he'd end up here?

Unfortunately, Eddie met a grim fate, but boy, did he go out in a blaze of glory by thrashing Metallica's classic Master of Puppets on top of his trailer with the help of Dustin at the Upside-Down, drawing the attention of the Vecna's demonic bats as Steve, Robin, and Nancy make their way to Creed house in a race against time to prevent him killing Max. For more, check out the complete excerpt here.

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