''A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Dealers'' is a 2006 British science fiction horror novel written by Jeffrey Thomas and published by Black Flame. A tie-in to the '' Nightmare on Elm Street'' series of American horror films, it is the fifth and final installment in a series of five ''Nightmare on Elm Street'' novels published by Black Flame and is set in a future where technological advancement has allowed for the recording and reliving of dreams, attracting the attention of supernatural killer

Freddy Krueger Freddy Krueger () is a fictional character and the antagonist of the ''A Nightmare on Elm Street'' horror film franchise. Created by Wes Craven, he made his debut in Craven's '' A Nightmare on Elm Street'' (1984) as the malevolent spirit of a ...

Plot

In the near future, where dreams and memories can be recorded and relived with Saxon Systems' TranceBoxes, the government has contracted the Springwood, Ohio, branch of Macrocosm Research to study the digitized brains of local murder victims, all of whom had strange tumors in the parts of their brains associated with dreaming; unbeknownst to the Macrocosm researchers, the victims were killed by

, a serial child rapist and killer who, after being burned to death by angry parents, now haunts the Dream World. Freddy, long dormant due to a lack of fear from Springwood's populace to feed on, is revitalized by his old victims' nightmares being studied and begins terrorizing the Macrocosm researchers and the employees of Mnemonic Designs, a company Alex Carmack, a researcher for Macrocosm, had smuggled the dreams to in hopes of selling them to Saxon. Alex gives TranceBox copies of the recorded nightmares to his younger brother, Devon, and five of Devon's friends, unknowingly granting more power to Freddy. One of Devon's friends, a hacker named Autumn Langevin, contemplates making the nightmares available for illegal download on the Internet, which would give Freddy the means to torment the entire world and not just Springwood. As Freddy begins killing people, including two of Devon's friends, he also tries to tempt Autumn into uploading the nightmares, promising to make her a God. After three of his colleagues at Macrocosm are killed, Alex trashes the company's equipment in an attempt to combat Freddy and calls Trisha Smith, his girlfriend and co-worker at Mnemonic, and instructs her to destroy everything related to the nightmares at Mnemonic. After dismantling Mnemonic's equipment, Trisha calls Devon, and together they use a TranceBox to enter the Dream World in an attempt to save a trio of Mnemonic employees being held there by Freddy. Devon and Trisha fail to stop Freddy from butchering the three Mnemonic employees but do call and warn Devon's girlfriend, Grace Simmons, and her friend, Ama Oduro, to destroy their copies of the nightmares while Devon checks in on Autumn. Autumn had begun uploading the nightmares onto her website, but Devon destroys Autumn's computers, stopping the upload and prompting an enraged Freddy to murder Autumn. Alex uses Macrocosm technology to erase Trisha, Grace, and Ama's memories of Freddy. Devon, using a bomb he found in Dream World, blows Freddy up and leaves him to the mercy of the vengeful souls of his recent victims, including Autumn. Alex wipes his and Devon's memories of Freddy, but a few weeks later, Macrocosm, goaded by the government, begins studying the tumors found in the brains of Freddy's latest victims, with the project being headed by the amnesiac Alex, who believes he can use memories extracted from the brains to discover the identity of whoever killed his and Devon's friends and "drag him out of the shadows—into the light."

Publication

In 2004, Black Flame solicited pitches from author Jeffrey Thomas for tie-in novels based on films produced by

New Line Cinema New Line Productions, Inc., Trade name, doing business as New Line Cinema, is an American film production, film and television production company that is a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group, a division of the Major film studios, ...

. Black Flame turned down Thomas's pitch for a ''

Jason X ''Jason X'' is a 2001 American science fiction slasher film directed by Jim Isaac and written by Todd Farmer. It is the tenth installment in the ''Friday the 13th'' franchise. It stars Lexa Doig, Lisa Ryder, Chuck Campbell, and Kane Hodder ...

'' novel but accepted his proposal for one based on ''

A Nightmare on Elm Street ''A Nightmare on Elm Street'' is a 1984 American Supernatural horror film, supernatural slasher film written and directed by Wes Craven and produced by Robert Shaye. It is the first installment in the A Nightmare on Elm Street (franchise), ''A ...

'', "which had a little bit of a SF spin to it." The concept of combining science fiction with horror by setting a ''Nightmare on Elm Street'' story "a couple years in the future" was suggested to Thomas by Black Flame associate editor Mark Newton. The novel, Thomas's first mass market release, was, according to Thomas, "a blast to write" and "an exciting challenge" in which he was able to "bring my own imagination to the task of writing a story based on an established series." When it came to writing

, Thomas took inspiration from the 2003 film ''

Freddy vs. Jason ''Freddy vs. Jason'' is a 2003 American slasher film directed by Ronny Yu and written by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift. It is a crossover between ''A Nightmare on Elm Street'' franchise and ''Friday the 13th'' franchise, being the eighth in ...

'', specifically the film establishing Freddy needing to be remembered to retain his power; paced Freddy's appearances to build suspense and to not water down the character's impact; and characterized Freddy as having a "nasty" and "smugly self-amused" sense of humor comparable to the demon (

Pazuzu In ancient Mesopotamian religion, Pazuzu () is a demonic deity who was well known to the Babylonians and Assyrians throughout the first millennium BCE. He is shown with "a rather canine face with abnormally bulging eyes, a scaly body, a snake-h ...

) from

William Peter Blatty William Peter Blatty (January 7, 1928 – January 12, 2017) was an American writer, director and producer. He is best known for his 1971 novel ''The Exorcist (novel), The Exorcist'' and for his screenplay for The Exorcist, the 1973 film adaptat ...

's 1971 novel ''

The Exorcist ''The Exorcist'' is a 1973 American supernatural horror film directed by William Friedkin from a screenplay by William Peter Blatty, based on The Exorcist (novel), his 1971 novel. The film stars Ellen Burstyn, Max von Sydow, Jason Miller (play ...

.''

Reception

Don D'Ammassa Donald Eugene D'Ammassa (born April 24, 1946) is an American fantasy, science fiction and horror critic and author.Chronicle A chronicle (, from Greek ''chroniká'', from , ''chrónos'' – "time") is a historical account of events arranged in chronological order, as in a timeline. Typically, equal weight is given for historically important events and local events ...

'' commended the novel, calling it "quite readable" and further commenting, "

Thomas Thomas may refer to: People * List of people with given name Thomas * Thomas (name) * Thomas (surname) * Saint Thomas (disambiguation) * Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, and Doctor of the Church * Thomas the A ...

has proven himself to be an interesting writer, particularly at shorter length, and here demonstrates his ability to take an existing theme and do something new with it." Similarly, Louis Fowler of Bookgasm opined that the book's plot was "brilliant in its simplicity" and concluded, "Thomas has written a great read, one that, while using familiar characters, works so well on its own that twould be an incredible way to bring the franchise back to life if it ever hit the silver screen."

References

External links

Interview
with Jeffrey Thomas at ''Nightmare on Elm Street'' Companion * {{DEFAULTSORT:Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Dealers, A 2006 British novels 2006 science fiction novels 2000s horror novels Black Flame books Books about computer hacking British horror novels British science fiction novels Fiction about brain–computer interface Fiction about child murder Fiction about father–daughter relationships Fiction about grief Fiction about memory erasure and alteration Fiction about mother–daughter relationships Fiction about shapeshifting Fiction about teleportation Fiction about uxoricide Ghost novels Juvenile delinquency in fiction Juvenile sexuality in books Literature about pedophilia Dream Dealer Novels about alcoholism Novels about brothers Novels about computing Novels about dysfunctional families Novels about friendship Novels about infidelity Novels about mass murder Novels about nightmares Novels about revenge Novels about serial killers Novels about technology Novels about telekinesis Novels about telepathy Novels about the Internet Novels about theft Novels about writers Novels set in high schools and secondary schools Novels set in Ohio Novels set in the 2010s Novels with multiple narrators Science fiction horror novels Simon & Schuster books Splatterpunk novels Stuttering in popular culture Supernatural novels Techno-horror Third-person narrative novels Works about cybercrime Works about fear Works about neuroscience Works about sexual harassment Works about single parent families Works about torture Works set in laboratories