"No, not sat -- drooped."

October 12, 2020 5:29 PM

Two fanfiction short stories by Marie Brennan, writing on Archive of Our Own. "Darkness in Spring", a very short, silly riff on Greek mythology and today's exponents of darkness: "One year, Persephone doesn't leave Hades on schedule. Demeter goes to find out why." "The Rest", a clever James Bond-The Sandbaggers crossover: "Very few people remember where M came from." (You don't need to know The Sandbaggers to enjoy it -- just enjoy seeing competent women's tradecraft applied to bureaucracy and spy shenanigans.)
posted by brainwane (7 comments total)

Oh cool. I am here for updated Sandbaggers. A while back, I saw a mock-up of a movie poster for an M origin movie - split-screen with Judi Dench and Olivia Coleman as the younger M, and I was SO disappointed to find out it wasn’t for a real movie because that really sounds like it could rule.
posted by rmd1023 at 5:57 PM on October 12, 2020 [2 favorites]

Also here for sandbaggers, the rare "classic" show that is actually still watchable, cardboard sets notwithstanding.
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 6:50 PM on October 12, 2020 [1 favorite]

Thank you; I loved "The Edge" (though I wish it had been Burnside's original secretary, Diane, who made the leap, first initial notwithstanding). When he was about 12 my son wandered into the room while I was starting to re-watch "The Sandbaggers" and I thought "There's no way he's going to have the patience for this." The little guy sat with me for four hours binge-watching the entire first season. Now he's a Bond fan, too. I can't wait to share this with him!
posted by majorsteel at 9:01 PM on October 12, 2020 [1 favorite]

A 007/The Sandbaggers crossover has me trying to think of a way to justify one of Burnside's lines toward the end of the first episode as insulting Bond as a fellow operative rather than as fiction:

Special operations doesn't mean going in with all guns blazing. It means special planning, special care, fully briefed agents in possession of all possible alternatives. If you want James Bond, go to your library. But if you want a successful operation, sit at your desk and think. And then think again.

posted by Strutter Cane - United Planets Stilt Patrol at 11:48 PM on October 12, 2020 [2 favorites]

I haven't thought about the The Sandbaggers in years (yes, I am old enough to remember watching it whenever it showed up in the US). It was a great series.

And thank you for this post and all of the other fiction posts you've done. I've enjoyed reading the stories you've linked to.
posted by AMyNameIs at 10:20 AM on October 13, 2020 [1 favorite]

I haven't thought about the The Sandbaggers in years.

Youtube.
posted by BWA at 10:52 AM on October 13, 2020 [1 favorite]

A recent (short) Twitter thread about Sandbaggers and Queen and Country by John Rogers, including the description 'I once described it as "Bond if Bond was about boring men in ugly suits dying badly in Prague."'
posted by brainwane at 11:22 AM on October 13, 2020