Jarret Keene: The Joy of Telling Fierce Stories of Darkness and Light
Jarret Keene earned his PhD in creative writing at Florida State University. A beloved and highly sought after professor, Dr. Keene is an assistant professor in the Department of English at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas where he teaches American literature and the graphic novel.
He has written a travel guide, a rock-band biography, poetry collections and edited short-fiction anthologies including Las Vegas Noir and Dead Neon: Tales of Near-Future Las Vegas. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram and find him at jarretkeene.net.
In this post, Jarret shares how a drone-tech convention inspired his novel, what his press did to market his book, and more.
Jarret Keene
Name: Jarret Keene
Book title: Hammer of the Dogs
Publisher: University of Nevada Press
Release date: September 12, 2003
Genre/category: YA dystopian thriller
Previous titles: The Killers: Destiny Is Calling Me—The Untold Story of America’s Hottest Band, Las Vegas Noir, Dead Neon: Tales of Near-Future Las Vegas, A Boy’s Guide to Arson, Monster Fashion
Elevator pitch for the book: Set in the wasteland of post-apocalyptic Las Vegas, Hammer of the Dogs introduces 21-year-old Lash and her high-tech skill set and warrior mentality. Lash helps to shield the valley’s survivors and protect her younger classmates at a paramilitary school holed up in Luxor on the Strip—until she’s captured by the enemy warlord, who’s not the monster her headmaster wants her to believe he is.
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What prompted you to write this book?
Reading too much New Wave (1960s-1970s) and contemporary sci-fi was making me depressed. Reading military sci-fi and so-called “hard” sci-fi didn’t improve my mood. There was little to nothing on the shelves that made me pump my fist in the air when I reached the final page.
I wanted to provide fans with the kind of “bright darkness” that my generation (Gen X) enjoyed in the movie houses of the 1980s with films like Star Wars, Tron, Labyrinth, Aliens, and Dreamscape. Do you remember that feeling of walking out of the theater, thinking that anything was possible, that the Death Star could be destroyed despite the odds? That future adventures were guaranteed to dazzle?
I wanted to show my students (I teach American literature and the graphic novel here at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas) that novels can be fun, fast, and ferociously literary. I wanted to fashion a sci-fi epic that combined drones and 1980s glam metal and Latinx teenagers and flesh-eating flamingos and bombed-out Las Vegas, with everything cranked to 11 and run through distortion pedals
How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?
The idea for Hammer of the Dogs came to me during a drone-tech convention in Las Vegas 10 years ago, where I witnessed the marketing and promotion of near-future killing machines. I had to do something with the intel I gathered, and so I began writing a 2,000-word chapter every week to present to my creative writing students, showing them how to produce chapters consistently and with momentum.
At the end of two semesters, I had an 85,000-word novel. It sat in my Google drive for years until I hired an editor to trim away the excess. During the editing, my original idea of writing a charged novel about the evil of remote killing faded away. I began to focus instead on making Hammer of the Dogs less pretentious and more fun.
Once the book was down to 70,000 words, it read like a rocket ride, and I knew I had something special. I summoned the courage to submit the novel to a university press that didn’t shy away from genre writing, a place where I hoped it would get a fair read. Within five months, the reader responses were wildly positive, and I signed a contract.
Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?
Yes, I’ve been surprised by how readers of all ages are responding to Hammer of the Dogs. I sought to write a book that appeals to young people, but Gen X and Baby Boomer readers have a lot of praise to heap on my novel. That surprised me, and I learned that writing for a limited or specific audience is unwise. You have to write the book you want to see in the world, but you also have to allow the story to reach the audience for which it secretly yearns.
The press has put remarkable production and marketing efforts into Hammer of the Dogs. These efforts have put me in contact with people—booksellers, producers, fellow writers—who are eager to bring out a riveting adventure-fantasy for readers of all ages, an adventure that starts out grim and bloody, but ends on a hopeful, even happy, note.
Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?
I was surprised by the connection that I now have to characters in Hammer of the Dogs. The protagonist, Lash, is someone I wrote from a distance (third-person POV). But the more I wrote her, the more she did what she wanted. She took me on a rock ’n’ roll adventure for which I can barely claim credit. She led me on a nuked-to-hell journey, into a world of agony and thrills, with a Zippo lighter and a drone arsenal and a belly full of fire, and I’m so grateful to her.
Sure, I’d heard authors say that it happens, but I didn’t really understand it until I’d spent a few years with Lash, fighting for every scrap, trying to save the survivors of Las Vegas from warmongers.
What do you hope readers will get out of your book?
I hope Hammer of the Dogs helps readers understand that it’s going to take real courage, and real strength, to confront the challenges of AI and drones in the near future. That strength—physical and intellectual—is necessary to neutralize the abuses that technology inevitably inflict on us.
Lash isn’t merely an unforgettable character; she is, in spite of her complexities (zero impulse control, short temper, ADHD, utter rejection of authority), an aspirational symbol of what it takes to break the chains of a future that promises to limit and control our minds and bodies.
If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?
My advice to writers is to please, please, please have more fun writing stories and characters, and to not shy away from a happy ending. For too long we’ve let angry, miserable, paranoid, hyper-partisan voices dominate sci-fi/fantasy literature. I love Philip K. Dick and Margaret Atwood, but all that’s done now. A new era dawns. It’s time to return to the joy of telling fierce stories that celebrate the darkness and the light.
I’m telling you: We can solve the challenges of environmental destruction, technological control, and infinite war. But we must be brave like Lash, and realize that not everyone is the enemy they’re made out to be, and that sometimes we should take a serious look at the people who supposedly have our best interests in mind and reconsider our so-called enemies with a fresh perspective.