Gary Whitta is versatile. He’s a writer on films such as Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and The Book of Eli and the TV series Star Wars Rebels. Whitta’s also penned video games, comics, and a book. Then in 2020, he created a wildly popular show in Animal Crossing: New Horizons with Animal Talking. Whitta streamed his take on the late-night talk show on Twitch with a dazzling list of guests. And now Whitta is leveraging Twitch to do something entirely different with his sci-fi novel Gundog: he’s debuting the audio adapation of Gundog in weekly live-streamed episodes on Twitch. It’s a live serialized sci-fi audio event!
Gundog is Whitta’s second novel. It tells a story about Earth in the near future. A race of alien machines known as the Mek has conquered the planet. But a rebellious young woman named Dakota Bregman finds a map that may liberate everyone. She has to go on a journey first though, and she finds a long-lost prototype war machine that will help humanity fight back.
The gripping plot will premiere to audiences on Twitch first. Whitta will live-stream each of the nine hour-long episodes on his Twitch channel. He’ll introduce each episode and then host a discussion at the end with listeners. After Gundog airs on Twitch, each episode will then be available through all major podcast providers and on Whitta’s YouTube channel. Once the adaptation wraps, listeners can get the novel Gundog in physical and digital formats.
This first-of-its-kind adaptation is ambitious. Plus Whitta has pulled in some top notch talent to help tell his self-produced audio serialization. Shannon Woodward ( Westworld) performs the narration, while Grammy-nominated composer Austin Wintory (Journey) provides the score.
You can get a taste of the story with this preview:
Woodward’s narration and Wintory’s music make a captivating combination. We can’t wait to see more. The first episode of Gundog premieres at 7:00 p.m. PT on Wednesday, August 10 on Twitch (it will be right there on the front page, but be sure to follow Whitta’s channel). The adaptation will run for nine weeks with a separate weekly live broadcast every Saturday at 7:00 p.m. GMT to accommodate audiences in other time zones.
Amy Ratcliffe is the Editor-in-Chief for Nerdist and the author of Star Wars: Women of the Galaxy, The Art of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, The Jedi Mind, and more. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
