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And welcome back to Coast to Coast George Nori with you. Jared Keen orned his PhD and creative writing at Florida State University. Doctor Keen is an assistant professor in the Department of English at the University of Nevada and Las Vegas, where he teaches American literature and graphic novel. He has written numerous other books and guides on various topics, including The Travel Guide, A Rock Band Biography, and edited short fiction anthologies including Las Vegas Noir and Dead Neon The
Tales of Near Future Las Vegas. Jarrett, Welcome to the program.
Thank you so wonderful to be here.
How did you get involved in creative writing?
Well, I just found myself drawn to the enterprise of creating inventive, imaginative stories. I grew up, you know, in the seventies and eighties, there wasn't a lot of stimulation. There wasn't a lot to go on except for you know, TV comics, and I just I don't know, I just I just took to it and I found a way
to get a degree in writing. My dreams down on paper, on putting it in a word document and sharing it with others, with classmates, initially with my professors, but then I discovered that, you know, there was such a thing as the campus newspaper. I could write, you know, album reviews, I could write film reviews. I could do all kinds of things to make money with my writing. And so that put me on a what can I say, just a creative pass, and I'm very grateful for it.
There is a phrase in writing called dystov pe pn Dystovian. What does that mean?
It means well, according to my definition, it's you know, entropy, watching things fall apart and having fun with it. You know, entropy can be fun if if you let it, you know, guide your imagination. And I just find myself really drawn to these kinds of stories where civilization is either you know, destroyed or hanging by a thread, and you watch characters kind of deal and struggle through these imaginative scenarios. I
love books like, for example, Stephen King's The Stand. I like watching the world collapse and then I love witnessing the characters struggle to piece it back together.
Tell us about your latest book, Hammer of the dogs.
Oh my goodness. It's an incredible story of teenagers in a ruined Las Vegas killing each other with drones by remote control. The valley is carved up by two warlords. One is housed in the basement of the Luxe or you know, the black pyramid. They're on the strip with the sky beam, that light that shoots up into the
really the you know, the atmosphere. And then the other warlord has control of City Center, which is a posh resort, and so they're battling each other, and Lash finds herself engaged in a you know, a conflict she doesn't quite understand until she does, and then she finds a reason to put both of them in their place, so to speak.
How realistic is it? What do you think?
Well, all of the technology, all of the weapons that are depicted in the novel are taken from well, real life. For many years, I worked as a corporate communicator in the for the biggest resort company in the world, MGM Resorts, And I used my employee badge to you know, bust into these drone tech conventions at places like you know, Mandalay Bay, Caesar's Palace, and I was just awestruck and deeply disturbed by the technology that was available even just
ten years ago. It's unbelievable. All the technology in the book is taken from the catalogs and brochures that I took from the drone tech conventions. Everything from the ornithopters or the bird UAVs, to the insect drones, to the snake bots to the sentient pistols. It's just amazing to
see all these weapons developed. And what was particularly interesting is the way there is this I don't know how else to describe it, except it's like a vast and orchestrated effort involving the tech sector, the military, industrial conflict, higher education, foreign governments. They're all building up the drone industry. Surveillance and control are really what these drones offer. The ability to, I don't know, erase someone instantly with the
push of a button. It's just too intoxicating to ignore.
And the technology is going to get better and better and better, jured isn't it.
Oh? Yes? And then with the advent of AI, the algorithms determining who lives or dies, it's it's just too almost too much to contemplate, But that's what lash the hero of Hammer of the Dogs is up against and that's why she makes a decision to embrace this these weapons, find a way to use them to fight back.
Even though it's a novel. Even though it's a novel, how realistic do you think it might be?
Well, you can see now. I'm sure you've read the stories of the drug cartels in Mexico using drones that they purchased off Amazon, and you know, improvising explosive devices and they're just basically bombing each other right now. This is something that unfortunately, I can see young people taking to it at some point, you know, finding a way to amplify the horror and the nightmare of the remote control killing.
Yeah, it's uh, it's happening. Are you scared about this kind of technology? I mean, would would you hope through your book Hammer of the Gods, even though it's a novel, to convince people who goes, what can we do about it?
Well, Lash offers an example, which is to not run from it, not be afraid of it, but to you know, take it on, to master it, to embrace it, to use it in a way that you know ultimately can defend us. Because if we try to take it out of our hands and allow the government to have a
sole control over this technology. It's I don't imagine it will end well, but I know there are in fact, young people like Lash, the hero of my novel, The Warrior Hero, who will rise up and you know, like in the movie Terminator, they're going to uh, They're they're going to resist, and I could I can easily see that happening. So that inspires me, That keeps me sane.
Absolutely. Now, did you have any inside information with the technology. How did you come up with these ideas?
All of it, as I said, is pulled from these catalogs and brochures. But however, I will say this, I've had many drone pilots in my classes here at UNLV. I've taught them works like the Iliad and the Odyssey. I've taught them Shakespeare, and so they've told me a lot about what they deal with day in and out at places like Creech Air Force Base, where the drone war is waged on a daily, hourly basis here and just outside of Las Vegas.
You know these drugs that you see, like you just mentioned on Amazon, they look like toys, but they're really pretty sophisticated, aren't they.
Yes, And every year they become more sophisticated. In every day they find new ways, people find new ways to use them in lethal fashion. I mean, what's amazing, if you really think about it, is that, you know, the Right Brothers didn't really invent air travel. I mean, they invented death from above. It's really the most devastating military tactic of the twentieth century. You know, it's how World War two began and ended, you know, Harbor to Hiroshima.
And for the military, it's safer to send a drone instead of a pilot, isn't it?
Absolutely? And probably Uh, you know it's it's probably even more fail safe. It's it's a it's you know, more accurate. There's no emotional concerns. You know that the program, the algorithm, the you know, the computer will get it done.
I don't want to give away too much of your book, but uh, it's kind of scary.
It scared me writing this book. The only thing, like I said, that kept me grounded was the knowledge that I had a terrific uh warrior hero lash who you know it doesn't back down from a fight. Uh, even though even if she believes she's going to uh be snuffed in a you know, a conflict. She she she braves,
she moves bravely forward. She's she takes on the bad guy and spills their blood in a way that you know, fans of Edgar Ice Burrows and Robert E. Howard's Conyan and the Barbarian, I mean Lash is a pulp hero in the old school style flash Gordon zorro Buck Rogers. I wanted to create a character that, you know, faced impossible odds yet finds a way to you know, finds a way to be victorious.
Does she have superpowers?
No, but she does in the end. In the end, Lash is revealed to have a certain trick that a certain surgeon installed in her brain. It's not I'm not going to reveal what it is, but it's something that helps turn the tide of battle in the penultimate chapter.
If you have this turned into a movie, who would you want to play the part of Lash?
I don't know. There's so many great actors. The one thing that really stands out at Lashes her physicality. So whoever the actor would be, whether it's the actor that's stars in Wednesday Adams for example, that actor would have to do some push ups and pull ups and basically, you know, get fit enough to be able to conduct a serious you know, drone war and ruined Las Vegas.
Get him from the Wrestling Federation or something like.
That, someone with serious upper body strengths.
Let's just say absolutely. Now, have you ever played with a drone?
Yes? I have? And the sound of a quad copter, you know, something you buy off of the Amazon website. It's very unnerving the way the noise of it is. I don't know, it's just upsetting it it it bothers me. But I have twayda rounds them and had fun with him. And of course I have two teenage sons who are They love having little drone battles in the in the backyard next to the pool, and so I've I've enjoyed fooling around with them. However, I can't, I can't get
to uh. I don't want to go down that. Uh. I don't want it to become a serious hobby because otherwise, uh, I feel like I will be compromising not just the uh my love of the hero lash, but also you know, I do think that books like Hammer of the Dogs serve as a warning. You know, be careful with this technology. It's it's a Pandora's box. At once it's opened, you can't really close it.
Can it ever get to the point where the drones fly out of control of the radio control that you're holding. It just goes too far and then you just lose it.
Oh certainly. But you know what's scary with things like I almost said skynet, but you know, there are satellites now that allow a drone to basically, you know, you can be controlled wielded from you know, anywhere on Earth and reaching any destination. And that to me is you know, the kind of a nightmare. The starlink stuff is really frightening to examine.
And I assume the military is using these extensively, aren't they.
Oh yeah, and they're using them in ways that we're not even aware of. You find out when you read stories just on you know, mainstream news stories. You find that drones are always surveying, always taking in information. Whenever there's a you know, a major event somewhere in the world,
there's always like drone footage. It's scary to contemplate because it means you're being watched wherever you are you know, at any time of day or night, very unsettling, but of course that's sort of the fun of an adventure story. Like Hammer of the Dogs. I wanted to I wanted the reader to be frightened but also taken on a thrill ride, you know, roller coaster ride where you know that there's some bad technology afoot, but there's a hero there that's going to put it right.
What is she? She's overlooking Las Vegas as well on the cover, isn't she.
Oh yeah, yeah, that's uh. The cover is of course done in that Frank Frazetta style, that's pulpe fantasy mode. And I wanted to kind of I wanted the book to be a throwback in many ways to the adventure fantasy stories that you know I enjoyed growing up in the eighties, with movies like Empire Strikes Back, Conan, The Barbarian Tron, all those great films that you know have stood the test of time and that people still love. An adoor today, you've.
Got a human versus robot competition called the Magnus bout tell us about that.
That's a nod to an old comic book I used to enjoy reading called Magnus robot fighter, and so the Magnus bouts. You know, you always have to have a kind of glad creator sequence in any great adventure film. We've We've seen it in everything from John Carter to well the movie Gladiator, Sparta Kiss, et cetera. So I just wanted to, you know, give a nod there to some of the great pulp adventures that came before Hammer of the Dogs, and so it needed a gladiator scene.
And of course, when you have a technology wielded by kids, I think it's inevitable that young people will find themselves at odds, you know, physically confronting robots and fighting them in a you know, basically a deathmatch.
What do you think of the possibility of that where artificial intelligence becomes so amazing they literally take over things.
Yes, well, you know, growing up in the eighties there was a movie called Terminator that made a huge impression on me and a huge, you know, major impression on people of my generation. And so I don't know, I see us speak becoming more at odds with growing technology. Here at UNLV, of course, we're dealing as most universities are, with the chat GPT phenomenon. You know, computers a writing our students papers for them. It's a it can be
a real problem. And uh there's also things like cyber hacking of every university suffers these uh suffers, this misfortune, and I think that, you know, it's going to become an increasing problem. If you've seen the recent headlines, you know, the MGM resorts Caesar's Palace have been hacked, and they actually, yeah, they actually Caesars Palace actually paid the hackers, you know, the ransom and the millions of tens of millions of dollars to uh to cease and assist the fiber attack. So,
I don't know, I see it becoming increasingly problematic. AI will eventually, you know, be hacking on its own, and it's just it seems like a problem that's set the spiral.
I was kind of foolish to pay the hackers. They'll just do it again.
Yeah, I don't understand how that works. And you know, I'm told by it from the local papers here that it's a group of US and British hackers, but you know, I'm not sure how they know that. To me, it's something that can be anonymous and you have no idea where the attack is coming from. So I find that very that detail very interesting.
What is vender reaction of your book from your students?
Well, in many ways, I wrote it for them. I wanted to show them how to write a book. During the course of a fifteen week semester. Every week I'd bring in a new chapter, you know, two thousand to three thousand words and show them that the you know, the discipline and the momentum that you need in order to complete a novel. And I wrote it for them and in their honor. And what was really interesting is I inspired many of my students to embark on their
own novel writing adventure. And so I've had at least four or five students at the time that I was working on Hammer of the Dogs who completed their own book and or you know, have published self published some of them, and others are circulating their manuscripts now in New York in the literary world, trying to get a contract. So I find that to be very satisfying. It's nice to be around young people because they're inspiring and they want to read fun dystopian adventures. And I admire that.
How realistic do you think your book is? With what is happening in real life today.
Well, young people are in fact each other remotely in places like Ukraine, and I find that to be very sad. And you know, I can easily see that spreading across the world. And so that's sort of the bitter sweet, the tragic aspect of it. What's bittersweet is that I know that, you know, young people will find a way to rebel, to resist, and you know, escape this nightmare. They just have to, like I say, embrace the technology and not run from it, because if you run from it,
you'll just be on the run forever. I take the lesson of Terminator the movie very seriously. You know, you have to rise up against the machines at some point.
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