![\"\u2018Stranger](\"https:\/\/lamesacourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/book_1-copy.jpg\")
<\/a>At almost the same time that \u201cStranger Things\u201d gained popularity in 2016, an independent graphic novel series called \u201cPaper Girls\u201d by Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang was published. Also set in the 1980s, it focuses on a group of teen girls who deliver newspapers and come across all manner of mayhem caused by time travelers from the future. Mutated juvenile delinquents, robotic attack drones, future doppelgangers, and misplaced dinosaurs all menace our confused yet spunky heroines. Readers will recognize \u201cStranger Things\u201d themes of young people fending for themselves without adult help in the face of horrific scientific peril.<\/p>\nAnd finally, if \u201cStranger Things\u201d has awakened your fondness for \u201980s pop culture, \u201cReady Player One\u201d by Ernest Cline is like \u201980s nostalgia concentrate. It’s a sci-fi adventure novel set in a future where everyone is obsessed with virtual reality, and live their lives drenched in the images, sounds and stories of Generation X. Our main characters try to solve a mad scavenger hunt\/puzzle game across the virtual universe, traipsing across the worlds of \u201cBack to the Future,\u201d \u201cFamily Ties,\u201d and \u201cVoltron\u201d set to a soundtrack of Duran Duran, Kajagoogoo and Def Leppard. Naturally, this book about media obsession has been turned into a movie that should hit theaters in our present decade.<\/p>\n<\/a>\u201cStranger Things\u201d was clearly influenced by Steven Spielberg\u2019s wholesome adventure movies, but most obviously \u201cE.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.\u201d If you swapped out the short rubbery alien for a bald pre-teen psychic, you almost wouldn\u2019t notice the difference. So I’ll dig deep for this one and mention its obscure sequel-by-novel, \u201cE.T.: The Book of the Green Planet\u201d by William Kotzwinkle. I remember reading this one as a pre-teen myself, about the adventures of E.T., now safely returned to his home planet to resume his career as a botanist, and his human friend Elliott dealing with suburban life and the stresses of puberty. Facing scorn from his fellow aliens for his earthly adventures, E.T. begins plans to try to reunite with his old human buddy, and family-friendly high jinks ensue. You get to see a strange new world, and finally see a little of the internal life of the popular alien.<\/p>\n<\/a>Another key influence on \u201cStranger Things\u201d was undoubtedly the Stephen King classic \u201cIt,\u201d which is enjoying its own remade revival this year. \u201cIt\u201d is another tale of suburban youth who use the power of friendship to defend themselves from a murderous pointy-toothed creature, and have to do so all by themselves because no adult will believe them. But the kids of \u201c<\/em>It\u201d grow up, and later in the book must face the monster again as adults, much like several adult characters of \u201cStranger Things\u201d face their own parallel fight with the monster.<\/p>\n