Jarret Keene - Beyond: Hammer of the Dogs
(Cover image by Natalie Hernandez)
To close out 2023 and last semester's theme of the Utopian and the Dystopian, Beyond Thought is proud to interview our organization’s faculty advisor Dr. Jarret Keene on his new book, Hammer of the Dogs. Dr. Keene is an assistant professor in UNLV’s Department of English. Having previously written a travel guide, a rock-band biography, and various short-fiction anthologies, Dr. Keene’s latest book explores a post-apocalyptic Las Vegas valley where rival drone pilots rule the skies. Beyond Thought Blog Manager Leonard “Lenny” Brattoli sat down with Dr. Keene to discuss the book’s inception, creation, and advice on how to follow the author’s footsteps.
Brattoli: Where did the idea for Hammer of The Dogs come from?
Keene: Well, the original idea goes all the way back to my time spent as a communications specialist for MGM resorts, here in Las Vegas, on the Strip. As you are probably aware, Las Vegas is a convention destination, so I found that part of my job involved communicating to casino employees which conventions are in town and how long they would be in town, how many attendees, et cetera. I noticed that as I was putting together my announcements, there was this convention that kept returning dedicated to drone technology, or UAVs. Unmanned aerial vehicles, I thought it would be very interesting, so I used my employee badge to crash a few of these gatherings. I was awestruck and horrified by the kind of lethal drone tech being displayed and openly discussed and sold and commercialized. I learned very quickly there was a kind of relationship between various industries and institutions. I thought it was astounding to witness, and that it was only a matter of time before this technology fell into, what you might call, the wrong hands. I see this to be a very frightening future scenario and I wanted to use this dark premise to create a thrilling adventure story. To me, that’s the best way to write sci-fi or any fiction. To settle on a disturbing idea and write a fun story with incredible characters. It allows for a bright-darkness. We used to see these types of stories in 80s movies that had dark plots with bright characters and conflicts. I knew Hammer of the Dogs had to be in Las Vegas, where the water is running out and the environment is destroyed and drones are running amok, teenagers wielding them to kill each other and everyone else.
Brattoli: Going from your previous job at MGM to your current job as a UNLV professor, how has your time at UNLV affected the development of the novel, if at all?
Keene: Well, the main character Lash is a mixed-race character who grew up in Las Vegas and knew it before it was wrecked by the collapse. She is, in many ways, modeled after the many students that I have had the pleasure of teaching her over the past seven or eight years. I really admire my students, they’re different from students at other institutions. I really admire how my students are very blue collar, very do it yourself. They have a “go get ’em” attitude. At their age, their CVs or resumes are certainly more accomplished than anything I achieved at age 19 or 20. They worked on the Strip as lifeguards or valets. They’ve worked in marketing. They’ve done a lot and seen a lot. I don’t think people understand what it means to be a young person in Las Vegas. You know, when you work on the Strip, you see a lot of bad behavior, but you also see a lot of tragedy. More than a few of my students have watched people O.D. in the swimming pool or jumped off the parking garage after a bad bout of severe gambling. They know about the dark side of life and leisure. I admire them for being able to handle that. In other words, I see my students here at UNLV as being tougher and wiser and more mature than the average college student. That is just the hard truth of it. That puts my students in a very different position than other students across the United States. That's how I found the blueprint for the characters in my novel.
Brattoli: How did the drafting of this novel go?
Keene: Interestingly, I wrote a good chunk of Hammer of the Dogs with my creative writing workshop. I had about 12 to 15 students in that class. This was before the pandemic. And I wanted to show my students, if you apply a little discipline and motivation, you can easily write 2000 words a week. So, I brought in a new chapter of what would become Hammer of the Dogs and I presented that to them. That’s how I kicked off every class, sort of with a captive audience. I was just trying to demonstrate to them how you do it. How to overcome writer’s block. How to avoid literary paralysis. And so, for 15 weeks I brought in a new chapter and by the end of the semester, I had nearly 30,000 words. You know, what happened, Lenny, something really amazing occurred, which is that my students began bringing in 2000 words every week and sharing with the dozen or so of us that gathered in that class. And that was really remarkable. It wasn’t just science fiction, they brought in everything. Murder mystery, romance, whatever they were working on. At the end of that semester, two students had enough to have the first chunk of their eventually published novels done, which they now have on Amazon. That to me is a great success. It shows that the workshop process can work and allow students to be productive and successful.
Brattoli: At Beyond Thought, our theme for Fall 2023 was the Utopian and the Dystopian, which are big themes in your book. How does your novel represent utopia and dystopia?
Keene: Well, the dystopian element is evident from the opening chapter where Lash is being stalked by a deadly drone and fighting for her life. She nearly doesn’t make it but manages to escape on a bicycle through the storm drains to reach her home base of Luxor, where she is enrolled in a rather dystopian, cyber-religious paramilitary school led by Prof, who is not someone she admires but supports because of her limited options. The paramilitary school at Luxor is pitted against another warlord, whose mercenaries have gathered at City Center. She has heard all these terrible stories and seen footage of this warlord named Richter, who has been carving up the valley to take resources away from Luxor. She eventually gets a glimpse behind the enemy’s walls, and it is not like what she was told it was. In many ways, it is a kind of Utopia. Everything is bright, shiny, and new. It’s like a Googleplex campus. But like every utopia, there is a gritty underbelly. I’m definitely pitting a dystopian environment against a utopian one, but I am also making a point that one person’s utopia is another person’s dystopia. So, I’m having a lot of fun upending people’s expectations with what makes an ideal environment for human beings.
Brattoli: While the book is set in this destroyed world, it does have a lot of references to music from the past. How did you come up with this playlist of songs that you used in this book?
Keene: Well, it's not my playlist, in that this is not the music I listened to growing up. I did not listen to glam metal hard rock. I was more of an indie goth kid. But I found this was the kind of music Lash insisted I should be blasting as I write the novel, so the character really dictated the soundtrack for me. I found myself buying an old cassette Walkman and picking up old tapes of W.A.S.P. and Lita Ford at the ZIA Record Store. I found it interesting that Lash, the lead character of my novel, insisted that I expand my musical palette and listen to the music that she would.
Brattoli: On another note, at Beyond Thought we have a lot of aspiring authors that read our content. Since you are an English and Graphic Novel professor, what advice can you give to an aspiring writer?
Keene: The best advice is to keep writing and don’t give up. Carve out time every day to write. Writing to me is like working out. You have to do it every day to get the results that you want. If you don’t do that, it gets harder. The best way to get over something that is hard is to make it a daily habit. Writing isn’t easy. That’s why we have university humanities departments. You have to know how to write and the best way to know is to write every day to make it less difficult. That’s my main bit of advice. My second bit of advice is to surround yourself with positive literary people. People that are excited about reading, writing, publishing, editing. Surround yourself with people who do all of these things. Who design, print, distribute books. Once you understand the ecosystem, you get a better grasp of where you can position yourself as a successful author or editor or publisher or book designer. Writing and publishing books, like any industry, has its fair share of negative creeps and you want to avoid them. Be around people who believe in you and that you want to help and support. That’s my two bits of advice.
Brattoli: Thank you doctor. Now, for anyone who wants to read Hammer of the Dogs, where can they find the book?
Keene: They can pick up Hammer of the Dogs wherever books are sold. I think I saw it in Target the other day. But my recommendation is that if you’re in Las Vegas, go to the Writer’s Block which is an independent bookstore here in town. It’s adorable. It has an artificial bird sanctuary and cute little bunny rabbits and a cafe, so I really recommend Writer’s Block. But you can also get it at the three Barnes and Noble locations in town. The people who work at those stores are absolutely delightful people. I can’t urge people enough to visit those stores. But if you are outside of Las Vegas, you can get it online at Barnes and Noble, the Writer’s Block website, and Amazon. And of course, the University of Nevada Press website. I believe this is the first Science Fiction Adventure novel to be published in the history of the press, so I’m very proud to be the first of what I hope to be many Sci-fi, fantasy authors. University presses are academic presses, and they usually publish books for academic audiences. This is a stretch for them, so I am grateful that they took a chance with my novel. I’m doing my best to promote my novel. I think it's a lot of fun, my novel.
Brattoli: It’s very cool that the university press published this novel. It’s definitely helping more authors get into that publishing house. It’s great to see growth in the industry. Are there any personal publications or websites you would like to plug?
Keene: Yes, I have a website: JarretKeene.net. And I am also on X as @KeeneJarret. Or you can follow me on Instagram at @authorjarretkeene. And there is a new short film for my launch party at Writer’s Block. There are interviews with my literary peers, students, and fellow authors. My son also introduces me on stage and that is a great moment. To have my 15-year-old tell everyone about my book and invite me to read...that was a great moment in my life, and I hope to do it again soon.
If you want to check out Hammer of the Dogs for yourself, you can buy a copy here!
