Review of Diane … The Twin Peaks Tapes Of Agent Cooper

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Review

Diane … The Twin Peaks Tapes Of Agent CooperDiane … The Twin Peaks Tapes Of Agent Cooper
By Mark Frost and David Lynch (uncredited); Performed by Kyle MacLachlan
1 Cassette – 43 Minutes [AUDIO DRAMA]
Publisher: Simon & Shuster Audio
Published: 1990
ISBN: 067173573X
Themes: / Mystery / Fantasy / Horror / Murder / Crime /

Re-experience the mystery of Twin Peaks in an all new way. The Cooper Tapes. The private world of Special Agent Dale Cooper, previously reserved for one woman…Diane, including notes and stories never revealed on television. From the man in the black suit, Twin Peaks, in his own words.

Diane … The Twin Peaks Tapes Of Agent Cooper is a collection of 39 audio excerpts from the TV series of Agent Cooper recording notes into his voice activated micro mac recorder. All the selections are addressed to “Diane” (presumably his assistant). This is not an audiobook, instead it is more of a quasi-audio drama. If you’ve seen the television series, you’ve heard most of this already.

I distinctly remember purchasing this television tie-in production in the fall of 1990. Twin Peaks-mania was at its peak. I had caught the show’s dynamite first season during the summer re-runs. Series star Kyle MacLachlan had just hosted Saturday Night Live and the first Gulf War was gearing up – (which due to the endless war news update preemptions helped to ultimately doom the show). I suspect it will be very difficult for those who haven’t seen the Twin Peaks television series to follow the story in Diane … The Twin Peaks Tapes Of Agent Cooper – but even if they can, they’ll still be left unsatisfied. There is no ultimate resolution in this single cassette, even if there was to be some in the final episode of the second season. The tape’s story follows FBI special agent Dale Cooper from about 24 hours before the events of the pilot episode to the first episode of the second season. Included are many recordings done on screen and a few recorded specifically for this quasi-audio drama.

In performing the production Kyle MacLachlan is his charismatic self. Anything this guy touches from the Paul Atredies role in the film version of Dune, to the lead in the undersung The Trigger Effect, to his role on Desperate Housewives, I’m up for it. Production wise the new material is fairly well matched to the original soundtrack clips: Ambient noise, wind, road noise, crickets and varied distance from the microphone. Only rarely is another voice heard (notables include Michael Ontkean and Kimmy Robertson). The cassette opens and closes with Angelo Badalamenti’s haunting musical score for the series. This piece of ephemera is littler more than a curiosity, but I quite like it.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Don’t Stop by James Patrick Kelly

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

Hey! Here’s a new FREE READS reading from James Patrick Kelly (a terrific SF author and a pioneer in MP3ing his fiction)…

Asimov’s Science Fiction June 2007Don’t Stop
By James Patrick Kelly; Read by James Patrick Kelly
1 |MP3| – Approx. 41 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Free Reads
Podcast: January 21 2009
A woman runs with ghosts, both figurative and literal.
First published in Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine in June of 2007. It is currently on the Preliminary Ballot for the Nebula Award, given each year by the Science Fiction Writers of America. A woman runs with ghosts, both figurative and literal.

Podcast feed:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/freereads/

Posted by Jesse Willis

Dick Dynamo – Episode 6 (and more)

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

Dick DynamoIf only every email I got resembled this one…

Greetings Jesse and Scott.

This is jon baker form the dick dynamo podcast. I humbly kneel down before you and raise my dirty peasant hands. I beg of the might SFFaudio gods this one request. Could you please mention, talk about or promote Dick Dynamo on an upcoming SFFaudio Podcast. Or if you would rather please publicly scoff at our audio drama attempts. I’m sending you the live action PDF for the Dick Dynamo inspired music album, along w/ the Dick Dynamo comic book cover. All can be downloaded for free from DickDynamo.com. Also we plan on releasing episode 7 any day now. I just need to make some time to add in the last zombie groans.

Thanks for you time, and please don’t strike me down,

Jon Baker

Well, let’s see Jon. Your grubby peasant hands are pretty disgusting (covered in deep foley scars and podcast tweaking callouses as they are) but – on the other hand you do beg a good game…

Folks who don’t mind their audio tainted by such unsightly mitts can snag the full-length FREE music album from the Dick Dynamo “Goodies” page! Also available there is the Dick Dynamo comic book (the “origin” story).

Those are all well and good, but let me tell you all aboot my main interest in the DD site. It isn’t their goodies page, its their stream of unconsciousness sub-egoed story put out in the podcast. Dick Dynamo is the boiled down essence of American pop culture, the inverse coded messages of Hollywood amorality. Why not have a listen? I know that I do, in between committing moose homicides and maple syrup drownings. The latest one to catch my ear was Episode 6 |MP3|.

Podcast feed:

http://dickdynamo.libsyn.com/rss

Posted by Jesse Willis

BSAP: The Prisoner

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

Broken Sea Audio Productions - The PrisonerAdapted from the DC comic book by Dean Motter and Mark Askwith (co-creator of Prisoners Of Gravity)…

Based on the famous British TV series starring Patrick McGoohan.

Once upon a time there was a land called The Sixties, where brave men and
women fought a new kind of campaign, a secret war of deception, diplomacy and sometimes murder. But many learned that in this conflict it was hard to tell who were the real enemy. That they did not even know how many factions were involved in the war.

Then there was The Village. A sinister Shangri-La for people too dangerous to be allowed freedom. A place without names. The heart of an authority that used ruthless mental conditioning and torture to rule with absolute control.

One man was brought to the island who refused to submit. His battle was long and hard, but eventually he escaped and The Village was destroyed. That’s a version of the story. One for comforting children. Here’s another…

The Prisoner Episode 1 |MP3|

Posted by Jesse Willis

New Releases – Wonder Audio, Leiber and Weinbaum

Time Traveler

SFFaudio Recent Arrivals

Did you know you can get either of these titles, as well as any other Wonder Audio title for free?  Just sign up at Audible.com/WonderAudio

The Night of the Long KnivesThe Night of the Long Knives
By Fritz Leiber; Read by Mark Douglas Nelson
3hr,  37 min.- [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Wonder Audio
Published: 2009

Available at Audible & iTunes

A Deathlander’s life is a rough one. Atomic radiation, murder and sex preoccupies the sparse inhabitants of what used to be a great portion of America’s West. Kill or be killed is the law of this sickened land. Multicolored radioactive dusts floats in the atmosphere of this nuclear desert.

When Ray Baker meets a woman on his sojourn, he doesn’t know if he wants to kill her or sleep with her. Ray doesn’t understand his urge to murder. But he feels it like all the other Deathlanders. Just as he knows the girl feels it. Laying down their arsenal of weapons will leave them both vulnerable. The cost of a moment of intimacy may lead to the last moments of their lives. And what to do when the act is over, and both their minds turn back to murder.

Parasite Planet: The Ham & Pat StoriesParasite Planet: The Ham & Pat Stories
By Stanley G. Weinbaum; Read by Mark Douglas Nelson
3hr, 47 min.- [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Wonder Audio
Published: 2009

Available at Audible & iTunes

The short and meteoric career of Stanley G. Weinbaum produced many instantly hailed classics. None had the breadth of wonder, and adventure with philosophic insight as the trilogy of stories that feature Ham Hammond and Patricia Burlingame.

Parasite Planet begins with Ham Hammond trekking across the surface of Venus. The environment is parasitic, filled with bizarre alien life forms like the lasso throwing Jack Ketch Trees and the doughpots, a mindless omnivorous ball of animate cells that devour all living things in their path. When Ham meets the contentious Patricia Burlingame, they have to march across Venus to safety. It’s not clear what is going to kill them first, Venus’s hostile environment or each other.

In The Lotus Eaters, Ham and Pat are on a special scientific expedition to the dark-side of Venus. They discover a strange warm-blooded plant. The most disconcerting thing about the plant is when it begins speaking English and waxing philosophically.

The Planet of Doubt brings the duo to Uranus on another special scientific expedition. The cloudy shrouded terrain strikes terror into the heart of Ham as tries to find the lost Pat who he hopes is still be alive!

Posted by The Time Traveler of the Time Traveler Show

Start a New Series at Audible for $4.95!

Scott D.

SFFaudio News

Wow! A nice sale going on over at Audible.com. They’ve collected the first books of 71 series, and are offering them for a fiver.

Some quick recommendations from me: The Disappeared by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Hominids by Robert J. Sawyer, Voyagers by Ben Bova, and Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson. Jesse will be pleased to see Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan and Starship: Mutiny by Mike Resnick on the list.

I’ve been meaning to try out a Patrick O’Brian book, and they’ve got Master and Commander on the list (read by Simon Vance!), which is going in my queue… now.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson