Bloody Calculus depicts violence from priests and politicos to see how differently people would react, and hopefully inspire a sense of unease at how comfortable we’ve grown with violence-so long as it comes from its “prescribed” sources, those we’ve built in to our expectations and stereotypes. And interestingly, though I thought I’d written a dystopia, I’ve had some readers call it a utopia. What does it look like if we continue along that curve, and guilty verdicts are all passed down by a Facebook group? That’s the reality within the pages of Beowulf. For the last couple of decades we’ve seen a growing erosion of due process in favor of guillotines in the public square. The Beowulf books look at the logical extremes of this trend: social media as the backbone for social interaction and even criminal justice. Men in Black put it perfectly: “A person is smart people are dumb.” Cyberbullying and social shaming are two ways we’ve grown worse rather than better. I’m fascinated by mob mentality and groupthink, and the new ways they emerge in today’s society, the new tools they use. But the audience for that sort of thing (on its own merits) is limited, so I deliberately couched this in the contexts of sci-fi, adventure, and pulp violence. But I set out to explore ideas, and push the envelope of grammar and punctuation. I read it, I write it, so it’s a natural direction. I didn’t set out to write a sci-fi adventure. It’s impossible to know for sure why that was-a lot of brilliant work goes unrecognized-but I’m convinced it’s owed to what I was trying to accomplish. Thrilled about that (Best Sci-fi at IPPY, IPA, London, and Beverly Hills, and most importantly, ahem, Grand Prize Winner at Book Pipeline). How did the concept come about and what were the driving forces behind its (many) layers, both in terms of the narrative and the style? Obviously we’re a fan of your writing in Beowulf: A Bloody Calculus, and we’re not alone-the book has had its fair share of critical praise. Milo’s multifaceted background continues to shape the subject matter of his writing and further carve out a niche all his own. Winner of Book Pipeline’s inaugural season (2014), Milo Behr’s Beowulf: A Bloody Calculus pulls the reader deep into a noir future with heavy commentaries on social construction and the politics of violence and criminal justice, yet all wrapped in a surprisingly fun, nuanced genre narrative.
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