the interview
Marcher Lord Press: Tell folks a bit about yourself, Kerry.
Kerry Nietz: In some ways my story is the Hero with a Thousand Faces narrative for a techno geek. I grew up on a farm in Ohio, the shy and skinny son of a high school quarterback and a fair queen. I wasn't made for most of the things people clung to in my high school—sports, farming, music—most of it wasn't me. I also had serious hay fever. Summers were rough.
I did like to read, though, and occasionally jotted down the beginnings of a story. I also became enamored with this new innovation called the personal computer. Because it tapped my creative side, I chose Computer Science as my college major.
After college I got a job as a coder for a software company that made a database product. It was a really small company—many of the employees were related. Shortly after I started, we were sued by a much larger software company. We fought it off and managed to release a really cool product called FoxPro.
Those two events—FoxPro and the lawsuit—got us tons of PR. Enough that Microsoft eventually purchased us. I was then given two options: move to Redmond, or resign. So I chose to move 2,000 miles from home with only a dog as a companion. It was an interesting time.
The change was ultimately a good thing. I learned a lot, grew a lot, made lots of good friends, and had many cool experiences. I even served as a youth leader for a couple years. I also started writing in my down time.
Then after eleven years of intense programming, I found myself mentally tired. Restless. Then, on a plane ride, I happened to sit beside an elderly gentleman who was also a published writer. When I mentioned that I hoped to write a book someday, he said "Well, start early! You might get published before you die."
I took that as a sign. I left Microsoft and started writing fulltime. I had a nonfiction book published a few years later, but still had lots of stories to tell. I spent years writing, submitting, and getting rejected. I began to wonder if writing was what I was really supposed to do?
Then I started what I thought might be my last stab at a novel—one just for me. Now that novel is getting published. Who would've guessed?
Ultimately, I think my life is a testimony to God's honoring of His promise to make your paths straight if you acknowledge Him. I became a Christian at an early age and that decision proved most significant. I may not have always liked the places my path took me, but it has been fairly straight, thankfully. I would've missed a lot otherwise.
Oh, and now I'm married with two children, age 4 (a boy) and 2 (a girl). I met my wife while in Washington , in fact.
Marcher Lord Press: What is your novel, in a nutshell?
Kerry Nietz: A Star Curiously Singing is a speculative Christian novel with a decidedly cyberpunk feel. It takes place in a future hundreds of years from now, where much of the world is living under something akin to sharia law (Islam).
It is dualistic society, where average people live on the streets in near-squalor and the powerful ride above them in cable car-like conveyances. The latter group is shrouded in high tech, to the point of needing specialized debuggers to handle their machines.
That's where my protagonist comes in. Sandfly is a debugger who's been summoned by his master to solve the mystery of why a bot destroyed itself. The unusual circumstance? The bot has been to space. Deep space. Something happened on that trip that caused the bot to tear itself apart.
Marcher Lord Press: What's cool about your book? Why should I, a potential reader of your book, read it myself or buy a copy for someone I know?
Kerry Nietz: "Cool" should be the subtitle of this book. It has robots, spaceships, bald implanted debuggers (like having a blackberry lodged in your head), the struggle for freedom, a high-tech mystery, and a bit of cyber romance.
This book explores contemporary issues in a cool and unique way. Best of all: we're just getting started with Sandfly and DarkTrench. This is book 1...
Marcher Lord Press: Why is Marcher Lord Press the ideal publisher for your novel?
Kerry Nietz: I have been monitoring MLP's progress from my secret lair for years now and felt, at last, that the time had come. Then I merely used nanobots to assume control of Jeff Gerke's brain, and the rest was easy.
Seriously, I think it was a confluence of many things. Mostly God making paths straight again. Jeff probably doesn't remember, but I actually submitted a novel to him while he was at Realms
and was rejected.
Still, he impressed me with his demeanor and the fact that he actually took the time to converse with me via email—a far cry from the form letters novelists normally get.
From there, I maintained a surface interest in Jeff's endeavors. When he started his speculative fiction site, I checked it out—reading author interviews and Jeff's writing tips. Then when he started Marcher Lord Press, I signed up for the newsletter and purchased the first round of books.
Then I had this idea for a sci-fi novel and started writing. It had a lot of non-standard stuff about it, though. For starters, the tense it was written in, and the setting. Frankly, it was all a bit "off the map" as far as what is supposed to happen in a Christian novel. How it was supposed to feel.
So, when I had it done, instead of collecting more rejections, I sent it to Jeff for his opinion. I hoped it didn't suck too much. I also needed reassurance that my writing was okay. That I wasn't deluding myself.
I think Jeff's first words back to me were: "I'm reading it now, and I think it is brilliant." Obviously, that helped with my writer insecurity. Jeff's next words were "lame" and "skeletal" I think, but that was okay too. I knew the book wasn't all it should be when I sent it. A few revisions later, here we are.
Marcher Lord Press: What do you hope to accomplish with this novel?
Kerry Nietz: To entertain and inform, in whichever order you prefer. Countless writers have awakened ideas in my mind over the course of my forty-something years. If I can do that for someone else—even in some small way—then I'll feel justified.
Marcher Lord Press: Are there more books in you? If so, what might some of them be?
Kerry Nietz: I have about a half-dozen books in my personal slush stack. Some of those are pretty good, others are just stepping stones—earning experiences—that brought me to where I am today.
Regardless, I have lots of ideas colliding in my head, most specifically for the next book in the DarkTrench series. I have about 50,000 words written toward it, in fact. How much of that will stick, I'm not sure. But with that many words it can't be all bad.
Marcher Lord Press: Have you written other Christian speculative fiction? If so, what?
Kerry Nietz: Nothing that has been published. But I do have a fairly entertaining nonfiction book still in print, if people are interested. It is entitled FoxTales and it deals with the four years I spent programming right out of college. To me, it is the history of tech; whereas A Star Curiously Singing is the future.
Marcher Lord Press: Where can folks go to read more of your stuff?
Kerry Nietz: My website is www.nietz.com , which I will update fairly regularly with news and whatnot (www.kerrynietz.com will get you there too). You can find links for FoxTales there as well.
Marcher Lord Press: Finally, and most importantly, if you could travel to any time period or alternate world, what would it be and why?
Kerry Nietz: If we are talking time period, I would travel to when Christ was still walking the Earth. How amazing must it have been to witness it all happen? To hear the rumors about this carpenter who is healing people? Or to sit listening as He spoke? Or witness Him throwing out the money changers? To watch the world change
If we're talking alternate world, I would choose Edgar Rice Burroughs's version of Mars. ERB was a master of creating believable civilizations. Who wouldn't want to jump twenty feet or stop a white ape with a sword? Save a beautiful princess? Ride a thoat? Hatch an egg? Cool, cool stuff.
And if you investigate a little, you learn that there was a layer of symbolism to what ERB was writing—that the green horde was actually his take on Communism, for instance—and it becomes even cooler. If I could accomplish even a fraction of that in a novel, I would be happy.
