Stranger Things’ Robin Getting Her Own Novel and Scripted Podcast

The fourth season of Stranger Things is currently in production and new cast members were just announced earlier this week. There’s a lot to look forward to in the upcoming season, which has been teased as being “more mature.” Fans are especially excited to see the return of some favorite characters, including Robin Buckley, the season three newcomer played by Maya Hawke. Not only will Hawke be returning for the show’s fourth season, but Robin is also getting her own prequel podcast series and novel, which are set to be released this summer.

Rebel Robin: Surviving Hawkins will be the first official Stranger Things fiction podcast, which is set to be a six-part companion piece to the prequel young adult novel titled Stranger Things: Rebel Robin. The podcast and book are being released on June 29th. Hawke will be voicing Robin in the podcast, which is also set to feature Firefly‘s Sean Maher. “It’s October, 1983. There’s a monster lurking in Hawkins, Indiana, chewing people up, spitting them out. And Robin Buckley knows exactly what this monster’s name is: Hawkins High School,” the description reads. You can check out a video teaser below:

“I was really happy about it for a simple reason,” Hawke previously said of Robin’s emotional coming out scene in Stranger Things‘ third season. “There are a lot of complicated reasons, but the simple reason was that I think it’s really amazing to show a male-female relationship form on camera that isn’t about sex. Most of the time, that’s an undercurrent in one direction or another, and for Steve and Robin, it really isn’t. Even if Steve thinks it is for a little while, or it gets confused, as soon as it’s taken off the table for him, he’s equally invested in the friendship. He reacts so unbelievably well, and their friendship gets deeper. That was really important to me because that, also, was unique — not just being the first LTBGTQ+ character, but having one of the few aromantic friendships between a man and a woman on mainstream TV. It’s really cool to me.”

In an interview last year, Stranger Things producer Shawn Levy teased that season four could be the show’s best yet considering the pandemic gave the writers extra time to work on the scripts.

“I’ll just say the pandemic definitely massively delayed shooting and therefore the launch of our current Season Four, date still TBD,” Levy shared with Collider. “But it impacted very positively by allowing the Duffer brothers, for the first time ever, to write the entire season before we shoot it and to have time to rewrite in a way that they rarely had before so the quality of these screenplays are exceptional, maybe better than ever.”

Stay tuned for more details on Stranger Things’ upcoming fourth season.