Afterword
Daring To Dream
By Joshua La Rue
Hello readers! My name is Joshua Wayne La Rue, on youtube I have the moniker The 80's Slasher Librarian. I am currently 39 and live in Arkansas at the time I completed this fan novel.
Before writing Celestial Slumber I had warmed up by writing a Friday the 13th story that falls somewhere between short story and novella. It was called Friday the 13th Quarantine and was set in the dead of winter a couple years into a trioxin caused zombie apocalypse. I had a blast bringing my idea for that story to life. It had been born of a nightmare I had had a while back and I added some more plot elements and the product was Friday the 13th Quarantine. It was never meant to be a full novel, the entire idea was always to make it a fast paced, non stop narrative. The characters are introduced well enough but in the first chapter they escape the frying pan to land directly into the fire and once Jason is unleashed there is no slow moment all the way until the end. The characters get some growth and small back story here and there but it was always about the reality that all around these characters are different threats. Is the horde of zombies that forced them into Crystal Lake a bigger threat or is Jason?
After completing Friday the 13th Quarantine and seeing the positive feedback about the story from subscribers and listeners of the audiobook on youtube I felt I was ready to do something I had wanted to do since middle school. Write an actual novel. It didn't have to be 400 pages like the black flame books but I wanted to thread a full narrative from start to finish. Set up a wild slasher plot, create unique characters that have their own separate personalities, likes, dislikes, views, morals, their own pain and fears and then watch them grow and evolve as the book unfolds. I also wanted to write a Freddy Krueger story that would challenge me greater than Quarantine did with Jason. So I took a trope that most times NEVER screams quality and I decided I was going to put Freddy Krueger in space. I didn't want to set it in modern times because there were so many limitations. Every Freddy movie and original novel are set in the 80's 90's or 2000's with so many difering plots already. I also had a vision of my book setting up a rematch between Freddy and Jason in the distant future. So I set my Freddy In Space novel two years after the events of Jason X.
One of the hardest parts at the start of this project was coming up with a name. I did not want to name it Freddy X, Freddy In Space, A Nightmare On Elm Street The Dream Atronaut or A Nightmare On Elm Planet, haha. I wanted to give it a name that encompassed Freddy & space. I finally landed on Celestial Slumber "A Nightmare On Elm Street Story" and for fun when explaining it to people I'd say AKA Freddy X, because as goofy as that is there have been 9 Freddy films if you count New Nightmare, Freddy vs. Jason and the Elm Street Remake. I knew I was going to make this story very similar to Jason's adventure in the future but still unique in many ways. I did not want to have a modern day character somehow find their way to the future as well, that plot device was very clunky and would take a lot of work to make it fresher than Rowan's role in Jason X, but I needed a character to represent the reader/listener so I created Dr. Varissa DeGenarro and made her an Old Earth history professor with a doctorate in Earth-1 history.
I knew I wanted to include 1 alien crew member and 1 android as part of the cast but I didn't want to make the android an another KM-14. I opted to make Talos-16 a bit more stiff and rigid and still having his AI evolving as he had only been created 11 months prior. My 17 year old son actually picked the name Talos-16. Talos in my mind was a mix between Isaac from The Orville and Castiel from Supernatural. My wife would take a pen and paper when we had free time and I would start calling out the ideas I had for the story, where it would start, what would follow and how it would end and she would write it all down. Then when all the notes were taken and the outline was done we would do it again but this time separate all the notes into what chapter they would take place in. Then lastly we would take the list of chapters and what we said would happen in them and we would write out a description of each chapter and how it played out. She helped me brainstorm all the characters, I had an idea for each personality and she helped give me a sounding board.
Uber Freddy was important to set up the rematch if there is demand for a sequel to this book. I knew the transformation would happen similar to Jason X and Uber Jason but I would give Freddy more than just a suped up set of armor. He would need more to have a believable fight with Uber Jason. So the Gallagher Sphere 2.0 was added to the story, then when Freddy was pinned dead(ish) to the nano med bed where Talos and Lubdan had been building the Gallagher Sphere 2.0 it would make sense that while the bed was shorting out from the fire and voltage, the nano ants that make up the sphere and that would normally come from the bed to heal patients would in confusion heal Freddy and also rebuild the sphere but in Freddy shape.
This way if or when Uber Jason and Uber Freddy meet the fight will be more balanced as the sky is the limit for Freddy and his nano material hand, arm, right torso and right side of his head. I truly hope you enjoyed the Uber Freddy of it all. Freddy Krueger was always going to be very dark in my story, I wanted to counter the reputation of silliness IN SPACE gets with a pissed, evil, dark and blood thirsty Krueger with a dash of MTV Freddy sprinkled in here and there.
The ending was always there, it was about the journey of arriving there. I always saw Talos-16 nodding to Dr. DeGenarro as he held onto the Uber Freddy as the 2 were pulled out into the black hole. At one point there was to be a comm that Talos speaks into and tells Varissa "See Dr. DeGenarro, A cuddle will lead to a good night's sleep" before he and Freddy are pulled out into space. This was a call back to the early part of the book where Talos had made a comment to Varissa about cuddling leading to a good night's sleep because he has seen that Lubdan had slept good when they would "cuddle".
But the intensity of the scene and the hurt shape that Talos is in during the final scene on the Beowulf made that version a little too much to include. I will say that 75 percent of my original vision made it into this book and the other 25 percent happened as I sat down to write the book itself each night. It was an amazing feeling to have a story, characters and a vision to make it happen and then sit down to bring it to life and see the characters and story go in unexpected directions right before my eyes. This is the first ever full length novel I have ever written and some may say "THAT IS OBVIOUS DUDE!" but because it is my first it means a lot to me. I sincerely appreciate everyone that read or listened to it.
I never knew it would be so hard to kill off characters in a story. When I wrote the novella or short story, not sure where it lands, Friday the 13th Quarantine, I didn't really get a chance to get connected to any characters and their deaths didn't really affect me. However while writing Celestial Slumber I struggled to kill Christina, Nyquilio & most of all Lubdan. Each time I came to one of their deaths I would ask myself if my ultimate vision could be changed, but for a reason I will mention in a moment I was never going to be able to keep them around. It was motley just wishful thinking and sadness at seeing them have to leave the story.
Nero wasn't hard to kill off but I was saddened that Varissa had what could have been a great relationship ripped from her. Speaking of which, it was always my intention to only have 1 survivor and that was Varissa. What I meant before about my ultimate vision is this, I wanted a return to a "FINAL GIRL" situation. Too many slasher movies of late have multiple survivors as if the filmmakers are too scared to kill off certain characters. I wanted a return to form.
I will take this experience onto my next project. Which is looking more and more like "CELESTIAL SLUMBER 2: FREDDYxJASON" which was built up and teased at the end of the epilogue. I will end this here, I really hope I was able to entertain you with my story and characters. If even 1 person read or listened to this book and was entertained then I did my job. Freddy and all 80's slashers hold a special place in my heart and I am thankful Freddy let me put on the fedora and take an old classic out for a spin in a new setting. The In Space trope is something that is not spoken of highly but I hope that after you read or heard this book maybe I convinced you that "IN SPACE" is not always synonomous with "bad"! Thank you William Pattison & Jeremy Terry for helping me polish and edit this novel, I appreciate you both so much and can't thank you enough for your hard work! Be excellent to each other out there and as always...
PLEASANT DREAMS!
Joshua W. La Rue
June 2nd, 2024
llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thank you to the many authors who I have narrated over the years and who have truly inspired me to pursue my dream of writing:
William Pattison
David Bergantino
Jeffrey Thomas
Nancy Killpatrick
Christa Faust
Scott Phillips
Matthew Costello
Tim Waggoner
Nicholas Grabowsky
& So Many More!
Thank you to my wife Beth, I love you more than anything and without your support and keeping me on track and not letting me let insecurity hold me back this book would never have happened.
Thank you to my kids Anthony and Alexis, you are my world and everything I do is for you! Also Talos-16 just wouldn't be the same if you hadn't named him as such.
Thank you to Shawn Campbell and Alex Vanover for being awesome Co-hosts and awesome friends on the channel and in the real world!
Thank you to everyone who read and/or listened to my Freddy in Space novel!
Finally thank you to all the patrons and subscribers of the Slash Trax Network W/80's Slasher Librarian Youtube Channel. I appreciate and love you all so much!
llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Joshua Wayne La Rue, a 40-year-old horror aficionado, was born in August 8th 1984 and was raised in rural Arkansas as 1 of 7 children by a blue collar entrepreneur father and devoted house wife mother.
He always had aspirations outside the small town life he grew up in. Joshua has been a dirt track stock car racer, appeared on 3 reality TV shows, has performed as an extra in 3 indy films including a choregraphed fight scene and death scene in an unfinished film "The Barbarian Poet" (the trailer for which is still on youtube) and he was an active independent professional wrestler for over a decade before a back injury in 2010 led to ending that dream when he was forced to retire from wrestling in early 2013 due to his worsening back injury and multiple knee injuries.
Joshua is now a devoted husband and father of two children a son Anthony 17, A Daughter Alexis 15 and two step-children Nikkie 25 & Viktor 18. Joshua's passion for Slasher Horror and his itch to perform and entertain has led him to create The Slash Trax Network w/80's Slasher Librarian YouTube Channel, where he's narrated over 70 out of print horror novelizations, reviewed and riffed on horror movies, interviewed horror celebrities and co-hosts two podcasts with friends Alex & Shawn under the moniker The 80's Slasher Librarian.
Joshua has always been a natural storyteller at heart but insecurities stood in the way of following that path. That is until he finally put insecurity behind him and wrote the well received novella Friday The 13th Quarantine. The feedback for Quarantine led to Joshua achieving his lifelong dream of writing a full novel - a dream he's had since 7th grade. Now, he's ready to share his chilling imagination and memorable stories with the world.
llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll