Since I started this blog, I've only had one repeat interviewee, that being Donna Fletcher Crow. Well, now Kerry Nietz has become the second. I have interviewed him a couple of other times when I was a contributor on a couple of other blog pages.
JR: Welcome back to the blog, Kerry. It’s been almost four years since I interviewed you last. To put it in perspective, it was about 6 months into COVID. Anything you’d like to update us about from that time?
KN: Great to be back, Jeffrey. Hard to believe it has been that long. Much has changed since we last talked, not the least of which is that society has pretty much returned to normal. No more masks or quarantines. No more infection counts.
My family marked a couple milestones since then too. My wife and I celebrated our 20-year anniversary a couple years ago. I now have a child in college and two more in high school. We also took one epic cross-country family trip since then.
I became a 3D printing enthusiast during that time too. Even printed myself a full set of Halo armor to wear at a writers’ conference. (Realm Makers.) That armor now serves as a cool office decoration.
JR: I remember a line from Steve Taylor’s song “Am I In Sync?” about a scientist who “lost his mind to renegade mice.” For some reason, that makes me think of your Takamo universe series known as The Muto Chronicles, consisting of "Rhats!" (2018), "Rhats Too!" (2019), "Rhataloo" (2021), and "Rhats Free"! (2024). What’s a muto, and would you like to tell us about the series?
KN: Mutos are man-sized space-faring rodents. They hail from a portion of the Takamo Universe called the Rhatsibahn Empire. They’re typically scoundrels and lackeys (think Star Trek’s Ferengi) but occasionally a nobler character emerges. My stories follow a couple of those honorable types.
JR: Hearing about the Takamo Universe makes me hungry, though it might be that I confuse it with the Indianapolis pizza chain Jokamo’s. For those like me who forgot your explanation four years ago, what is the Takamo Universe? Are mutos a regular part of that realm, or are they your unique contribution to this literary world?
KN: Takamo started as a turn-based mail-in computer game (meaning the computer ran the numbers and gave the results) back in the eighties. It was crafted by a handful of college students and grew to have over 10,000 participants. Along the way, an encyclopedia’s worth of lore developed.
Mutos have been part of the mythos since the beginning. In fact, "Rhataloo" is based on established Takamo canon, though I added a fair deal to the story. The other Muto Chronicle plots are mostly my creation. Randall Ritnour, the driving force behind Takamo today, suggested places for my rhats to visit, what they might be searching for, and who they might encounter. I took it from there.
JR: You had at least one non-muto book since I last interviewed you, a novel that captured my imagination: "Lost Bits." Could you tell us about the story, and did I miss any others I might have missed?
KN: Sure. "Lost Bits" grew out of an everyday occurrence at home. While searching for something, I happened to open one of our upstairs cupboards and discovered a stack of dusty, forgotten eReaders that my kids had either worn out or outgrown.
I felt a touch of melancholy. “How sad. These machines that were an integral part of our life are now discarded.” I moved from that to “What if that happened to a robot?” So, I started writing about what might happen if a robot woke up in a junkyard and decided to look for his human family. Along the way he befriends other technological misfits. I think of it as a robot-centric "Homeward Bound."
As for missed books: Aside from "Lost Bits," I’ve released a short story anthology entitled "Digital Dreams and Other Distractions," another rhats book ("Rhats Free!"), and I contributed an anecdote to a non-fiction book called "My First Novel: And What Became of It."
JR: One of my favorite writers is the late, great Allistair MacLean, and I figured one reason why: his heroes knew the importance of teamwork and each one had one or more others working with him. Should that friend not make it, the hero recruits a replacement. I find the same thing in your stories (Threadbare and Bullhammer, Frohic and Abs, 404 and Sam). Am I the first to notice this? Was this a theme you consciously had in mind, or did these just develop as you wrote?
KN: I rarely go into my stories with the characters fully figured out. I’ll have a few strong ideas about the main character, but the characters he meets along the way spring up from the narrative.
Subconsciously, I’m sure I’m resurrecting and reimagining people from my past. I’ve been fortunate to have many longstanding friends, some of whom I’ve known since early childhood. Aspects of their personalities show up in my characters often.
JR: Thank you for your time. And could you believe I wrote an interview without mentioning a certain book? What projects are you working on? Will there be a “Rhats Fore!”? (Sorry, couldn’t resist. Yeah, right.) Anything else you’d like to say? And how can we keep up with you on-line?
KN: Yes, how did you avoid mentioning Amish Vampires in Space? It remains my most talked about novel. You can reach me via my webpage, Facebook, and X.com.
I’m currently working on another story in the DarkTrench Shadow series, which currently includes the novels "Frayed" and "Fraught." It is turning out longer than I originally expected, but I hope to finish it in the early fall and move it toward publication from there.
After that? Not sure. I have a few non-fiction ideas and another fiction idea or two I’m kicking around. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s another rhats book in the future. My youngest son and father are fans of that series now, so I need to give them something new to read.
I think I’d call it Rhats More!, though.
