A Diamond in the DUSTx?

Gunpowder and Sky studios’ DUST division has made the jump into audio entertainment. It lies somewhere between a cinematic audio drama and an audiobook with ambient noise and sound effects. In August 2018, they launched DUSTx.

Originally focusing on science fiction movies and television on its initial launch in 2018, DUSTx has classics such as early films from George Lucas, Robert Zemeckis and Rian Johnson available on their various apps. Other cult classics like “Mystery Science Theater 3000” and “Bill and Teds Excellent Adventure” are also available for your streaming pleasure.

Short Review of Genborn

The premiere episode, Genborn is a science fiction story that doesn’t add anything new to the science fiction subgenre of artificial intelligence. That said, the execution isn’t what you’d expect from a story like this. Listening to it was an experience rather than reading. It didn’t have that Graphic Audio mark where you could tell who made it. However, the production quality is on par with them.

The story takes the unreliable narrator and subverts it in the most imperceptible way possible that you wonder if it was planned to be a meta-analysis of the trope. The plot is without a doubt overused, yet works here strangely and intellectually.

2019-20 News

In addition to DUST also landing two “best of” spots, one on Stitcher and the other on Apple’s New and Noteworthy list in 2019, the team has added several actors and actresses to their roster. Keith David, Danny Trejo and Alfred Molina, just to name a few. Molina acted in “The Starling Project” from Audible.com back in 2014. Trejo and David have appeared on “The Flash” (2014) offering their talents as Breacher and the voice of Solovar respectively.

With such a wide variety of creatives from the genre’s recent past, it begs the question of what kind of player DUST is going to be moving forward into the future.