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Gavin Grant Smith is a Scottish science fiction writer best known for the sci-fi novel Veteran. His latest work is the critically acclaimed Bastard Legion series, which is cracking military sci-fi. We caught up to find out more about his latest novel, The Bastard Legion War Criminals.

STARBUST: What’s the elevator pitch for The Bastard Legion War Criminals?

Gavin Grant Smith: Aliens meets The Dirty Dozen. Or: a mercenary legion, consisting of some of the worst criminals in human space, is blamed for a series of atrocities – most of which they didn’t commit – whilst fighting a vicious colonial war on an alien jungle planet. But if they didn’t commit the atrocities who, or what, did?

And how would you pitch that to someone who has only ever seen Star Trek?

If the Federation were to hire the Bastard Legion, the Borg would just go home. These are the people you send to frighten the Klingons.

What character is the most fun to write?

Miska, the protagonist, is a lot of fun to write because she’s a horrible person, but she’s very upbeat about it, and that’s very refreshing (for me, at least). I also like the Mafia consigliere ‘Uncle’ Vido Cofino because I write him as a genuinely nice guy, and I suspect he probably is. Also Massimo ‘the Fisherman’ Prola, Vido’s right hand man, who’s not so nice. With those two characters, I get to embrace my love of the likes of The Sopranos and Goodfellas, which becomes all the more interesting when you get past their archetypal exterior and find out what they’re really about. The big fun about the series is writing about a group of people who have an excellent reason to dislike one another coming to very begrudgingly like each other. It’s best not to get too attached to any characters, however, as the body count is so high Sean Bean fears being drafted.

Which character seriously needs to have word with themselves?

Well, Miska doesn’t really get morality… but she seems reasonably content. Torricone, one of the convicts, tries to be her conscience and I suspect he can be a little sanctimonious about it. The serial killer known as the Ultra, leader of the Nightmare Squad, a kind of post-human weapon of mass destruction only used in emergencies, is a bit too cool for school but he seems popular. I’m not sure that they’re ‘have a word with themselves’ kinds of people. There’s a lot of psycho/sociopath juggling amongst the Bastard Legion.

Why did you go for military sci-fi?

I’m not sure I have a really good answer for this. I’m interested in military history, particularly the history of Special Forces, but I also saw Aliens when I was 12, decided that Star Wars wasn’t for me, and I haven’t really looked back since (also Rogue Trooper!)  I’m a bit wary of mil-SF as a subgenre but there’s no denying that’s what the Bastard Legion books are, though there’s a big crime element as well. I guess I see myself as writing SF action adventure stories.

Why did you use the name ‘Bastard Legion’?

Because punk rock – that’s why! Err… I genuinely can’t remember. I was thinking about all the names of pulp – I love pulp in all its myriad forms – bad boy military units: The Dirty Dozen, Inglorious Bastards, The Expendables, Bad Company, etc. and Bastards just seemed to fit. Legion came because I wanted a big pool of potential victims err… I mean characters choose from and this feeds into a central mystery running through the series. It’s caused some problems, it made some people in my publishers a bit nervous, doubtless it didn’t help foreign sales, and I can’t advertise it on that guardian of public morality: Facebook.

The Internet tells us that you won the Campbell for Veteran. How has that shaped your writing career so far?

Sadly I didn’t win the Campbell award, I was nominated for it but Ian McDonald won it, which is worrying because I’ve been holding a grudge against Hannu Rajaniemi for winning it for years now. Also I saw Ian in the pub last week could’ve railed bitterly against him if I’d realised! It’s made no discernable difference to my career and I have to admit that when I was told about it I had no idea what a Campbell award was or its significance. Now my only award ambition is to get the award that George R. R. Martin allegedly gives out for not winning a Hugo!

What has been the most interesting shift in sci-fi writing in recent years?

It feels, and I’ll probably be told that I’m hugely out of touch for saying this but we’ve moved a little beyond trends in science fiction. My sweet spot is the sort of post/transhuman space opera and that seems to be going great guns at the moment. I think the most interesting thing that’s happening, however, is that we’re starting to hear from a much more diverse spectrum of writers. I know there’s people out there who feel it’s a cynical box ticking exercise but I think it’s making a huge difference. We’re getting perspectives that we’ve never seen before, which is in turn making us older hands reassess our comfortable position and so every one is just making a bit more of an effort across the board. What I don’t understand is the resistance to this, particularly in a genre like SF. I mean it’s not as if all of Heinlein’s books have been burned.

What tropes do you personally avoid the most?

I love tropes! I’m irritated that so many of them are now considered old hat. I’m the guy who’s annoyed that he can’t get away with writing a book where a dwarf, elf and wizard all go on an adventure together. The ones I do avoid are the ones I know I sort of should because people express dislike for them. There are also some properly toxic tropes out there tied to representations of race, gender, and sexuality – those can do a burton. Other than that I avoid the chosen one trope because I’m deeply suspicious of messianic figures (as good guys anyway), and think people should save themselves rather than wait for a hero to do it for them. Thing is people say they don’t like the chosen one/messianic trope but it’s pretty much every superhero film. At least Harry Potter was bred as a weapon!

If you could give the 16-year-old version of yourself any advice, what would it be? Would you listen?

Be less of a dick, try harder in college, write more, mullets aren’t cool, go easier on your family. Also, here, take this manuscript and send it to this address before the Internet takes off! And no, he wouldn’t listen. He was an idiot.

THE BASTARD LEGION WAR CRIMINALS is available now.

STARBURST has a feeling of déjà vu as we get the lowdown on HAPPY DEATH DAY 2U from the film’s stars JESSICA ROTHE and ISRAEL BROUSSARD…

STARBURST: How was it getting back into the character of Tree/Carter for you?

Jessica Rothe: It was amazing and completely terrifying! Shooting the first film was an unbelievable experience because we bonded as a cast and crew and Chris Landon (the writer/director) was our captain. He is such an intelligent, generous, and kind human being that he set the tone on set and challenged everyone to be their best version of themselves. So when the opportunity for the second film came around, I was so excited to get the band back together again. But I was nervous because sequels are tricky and it’s easy to sit back and do all of the same things as the first one, but that can create a boring film. I have to commend Chris for saying we can’t do that; we have to turn this thing on its head to make it crazier and funnier and more emotional and continue evolving the world and expanding it. Once we put the focus on that, I realised that it’s just a continuation and I don’t have to replicate anything, and I can expand on what I did before.

Israel Broussard: It was little difficult, to be honest – Carter had such a happy-go-lucky vibe that I was worried the energy wouldn’t match from the first one, especially because of the continuity and starting the story from the next day. But once I got that out of my head and we started shooting, I fell right back into being Carter. It was super fun in the end.

It was a great choice was to have your character called Tree, meaning that her growth over time works on another level.

JR: Exactly! Chris is great like that. There’s also the joke about if a tree falls in the woods does it make a sound. Tree is in a metaphysical quandary, and I think another reason people connected with the film is she turns into such a badass and seizes her own destiny without having to wait for someone to save her – it doesn’t mean that she doesn’t need help or that she won’t ask for help, but she’s not the kind of person to run away from the killer. Blumhouse has been doing a great job with helping genre films with female empowered characters and leads – for example, look at the new Halloween movie, it had a purely female-driven protagonist story. I think that audiences are really ready to see that.

What are some of your favourites scenes (or more specifically, deaths) that you shot across both films?

JR: There is truly a plethora of fun and strange deaths that Tree has. There was a time on set that the game of the day was “What are all the weird and creative ways that we can kill Jessica?” [laughs] which was a very funny but morbid game. I loved shooting the skydiving scene in HDD2U, which was a reshoot; it was added after we had wrapped the second film. Chris had wanted to do and wasn’t sure if it would work, but once we did it, he said we have to use that. It was so much fun, and our costume designer nailed the bathing suit, and I got to do a trust fall, in which I fell kinda far. The electrocution death was also a lot of fun, that hairstyle was all my hair and lots of hairspray. These weren’t death scenes, but I also loved filming the scenes with Tree’s mum in the second film because they were emotionally challenging. They had a different energy and it as fun figuring out how to balance that with the rest of the film.

IB: I had fun re-watching the first one, and with this one, I had read the script but had no idea on how Chris was going to execute it. The dorm room scenes were always a lot of fun; in the second one, specifically, I loved the scenes with Tree and her mum. Almost every time I saw that I would tear up. That definitely gave the movie what the first one lacked, which was pure emotion and we did it while maintaining the main concept. And, of course, the skydiving scene [laughs], it was so much fun to film.

HAPPY DEATH DAY 2U is in cinemas now and you can read our review here. Read more from our interview with Jessica and Israel as well as director Christopher Landon in the latest issue of STARBURST #458 – on sale now.

For last year’s Halloween, director David Gordon Green got fans on his side when it was announced that the original Shape, Nick Castle, would be making a cameo appearance as Michael Myers in the re-enivisioned sequel to John Carpenter’s 1978 horror classic. While Castle has been retired from acting and making films for several years, it seemed like those making the new Halloween were dead-set on connecting the new film to the original as much as possible. While he only appears in one scene – when Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode first encounters Myers – Castle also recorded all of the sounds of the Shape, from his breathing to the grunts from the many hits he takes in the film’s no-holds-barred finale.

STARBURST: How far along in the process did you become involved with the new Halloween?

Nick Castle: About a year ago, August, I got a call from my agent who books me at horror conventions. He also represents all the other guys who played Michael Myers in the other films, and the casting people from the movie were calling him up, trying to get ideas. He suggested me, without asking me, and he called and asked, “Would you be interested? I found out that they’d be interested in you doing it, if you want to.” I knew that they were going to do a new Halloween. I didn’t know what the script was, but I knew John [Carpenter] was involved. So, that was in August [2017], and they were going to do it in October, but they delayed it a few months to work on the screenplay, and wound up shooting it, I think, in February.

The recreation of the famous on-set photo of you drinking a Dr. Pepper with the mask on suggests that shooting was pretty fun. Was it as enjoyable as that image suggests?

Oh, yeah. All that and more. First of all, it was great to be on a set again. Y’know, I’m a filmmaker, but I’ve been retired for a while, so I haven’t been on a set, so that in and of itself was nostalgic. Met a lot of great people – very talented and warm. Got a lot of pats on the back for my own career and my own movies – a lot of fans of those. And, because I had, for the last few years, been going to these horror conventions, I know the fans, and know how much they love this genre, and I know what they would like, so some of my suggestions of revisiting these old photos and reliving some of these old moments from the original were ones that both myself and the filmmakers there wanted to do, so we had a blast with that. A lot of fun – got to meet Danny McBride, one of my favourite comedy actors, and see Jamie Lee Curtis and John again, so it couldn’t have been more fun.

You’re the one who recorded all of the breathing for Michael Myers in this film. What’s that process like – is it kind of ridiculous, sitting in a recording booth, breathing heavily into a mask?

Well, that’s basically what it is. I got an email or a call – I don’t remember which – and David [Gordon Green] said, “Wouldn’t it be great if you did all the breathing?” and I went, “Oh, that’s great. I love that idea.” [chuckles] He said, “We’ll do it in L.A., and we’ll just send you to one of these post-productions houses,” and that’s what we did. I went there and Ryan Turek, who was one of the producers, was there, along with the post-production group, and that was the first time I got to see the movie, too – in stops and starts. We just played through all the scenes with Michael Myers and we started by me actually putting on a mask and breathing. Then, we took that off, and I just kind of ended up breathing into my hands, instead. That’s what we ended up using – it came out better than going through the mask itself. That was fun, and I got to be a part of the movie again.

Seeing all of those scenes with just the Shape – how did that prepare you for seeing the final, completed film?

Not only did David send the me the original script when I first got on, but was gracious enough to hear my thoughts on some of the scenes and things like that, so I was very much aware of the storyline. But, I was only on the set for about a week, so I saw material that was being done there, but seeing it [during post-production], it was hard to tell, because of stops and starts, but it looked like it was really working. What I really appreciated was the work they did on extending the ending of the movie. I thought that was really helpful to giving some impact to the finale.

Of all the scenes for which you recorded the sound, which required the most interpretation on your part?

Well, the entire ending. There were so many efforts – it’s not just breathing, but when you’re hit or when you get shot or what the character might do. Then, you leave it up to the director and the editors to decide how much of that impact they want to hear. Does it play within the setting of the scene, because it might not be as prevalent as if you’re alone in a closet, hearing the Shape’s menacing breathing. There’s not a lot of nuance you can give to these things – you’re breathing! [laughs] You just have to figure out how this is going to play – he’s a tough guy, so he’s not going to say, “Ouch,” out loud. You don’t want it to come off as comical – let’s just put it that way!

HALLOWEEN is available on Digital Download now, and 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray and DVD on February 25th from Universal Pictures Home Entertainment.