Back in 2004, Nisi Shawl's "Deep End" appeared in So Long Been Dreaming, an anthology edited by Nalo Hopkinson. This story, which moved me deepl y, set my imagination racing. I implored Nisi to write a novel set in the world of that story, a novel that I would love to publish. Although Nisi did not immediately sit down and write that novel, what they did instead was write stories that, bit by bit, told the narrative I longed for. And so, just one year ago, Nisi sent me the ms of Making Amends.
Today I'm mighty pleased to announce the release of Making Amends. It's available in both print and e-book editions from Aqueduct Press (http://www.aqueductpress.com).
You can read a sample of the book here: http://www.aqueductpress.com/books/samples/978-1-61976-268-8.pdf
Here's the description we've put on the back cover:
Starting an interstellar penal colony could be an extremely practical idea, right? It could even provide a sponsoring corporation a good Return on Investment—though of course their initial investment would be massive. Making Amends is a novel-in-stories that tells how a corporate government tries to put this idea into action. Beginning with the selection of the first mission’s “volunteer” crew and culminating with the idea’s lovely and unforeseen consequences, Making Amends immerses readers in strange new worlds, worlds precious to discover, tricky to explore, and beautiful to behold.
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"Making Amends is an unsettling, immersive, out-of-body exploration of the future of the prison industrial complex and artificial intelligence that transports readers through sub-light speeds to an unexplored planet. Watching the world of Nisi Shawl’s creation unfold through the voices of intriguing characters – both human and AI – I couldn’t help but think about how our country’s justice system could lead to the terrifyingly disproportionate retribution in these linked stories. By the end of the book, I was left understanding more about how power changes people, and how even in the bleakest of times, love, resistance, and community can blossom." —LaToya Jordan, author of Shirley Jackson award winning To the Woman in the Pink Hat
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Nalo Hopkinson has, appropriately, written the introduction for the book. They note that in portraying the lives of people surviving in the world-machine and actually thriving, Nis's spin is "inimitable."
"Let’s start with that title: Making Amends. The doubling of meaning that Nisi crafts; a community of people convicted of crimes (I won’t say “criminals,” for reasons Nisi addresses in this collection) who have opted to take the sentence of settling an alien planet, which has been named “Amends.” To save space and make the journey affordable, their original bodies are destroyed, and their consciousnesses stored then loaded at the other end of the journey into bodies cloned from those of their purported victims. The prisoners are given no choice over the race or sex of the bodies they’re given."
I love the doubleness of that title, its irony. That particular flavor of irony is one that Nisi has made their own. The last stories in the book are precisely about how people, no matter the constraints and handicaps and hardships that have been inflicted on them, make not only a new life (in the metaphorical sense) for themselves, but also a new world, on a planet completely unknown to them. This is the ultimate human drive; mere survival--eating, shitting, reproducing--is not enough, can never be enough. Creativity isn't a bonus, but a necessity. We have always made our world, no matter the odds against us. It's what we humans do. And people making their world is what Making Amends shows us.
Finally, I want to quote from Nisi's essay, "My Recipe for Making Amends":
"The final fillip of whatthefuckery I added to “Deep End’s” premise was to stipulate that the bodies into which the convicts’ consciousness would be downloaded were cloned from the genetic material of their supposed “victims.” Thus a doctor providing abortions could be reborn into a body copied from the DNA of an aborted fetus, or a strike organizer into one copied from a corporation’s CEO....
"One question I’ve faced from some editors and reviewers when talking about this series and a few other stories I’ve written is: What did my imprisoned characters do wrong, and what justifies their treatment?
"The short answer, the answer I give once I’ve quieted my fury enough to respond coherently is: “Nothing.” Nothing justifies the police persecution experienced by the hero of “Lazzrus” and “Sunshine of Your Love;” nothing excuses the confinement and exile of the involuntary inhabitants of Amends. The longer, more specific answer I give tallies up behaviors recently re-problematized: seeking and providing abortions, presentation as an unassigned gender, non-heteronormative sexual interactions, and so on.
"My home community is the African diaspora in the United States, specifically in Kalamazoo, Michigan. In my neighborhood there was never a need to discuss why someone was incarcerated. Incarceration was axiomatic, a basic condition of our lives. This past is the root of my resistance to the question. And the unfurling bud at the tip of the tree of my resistance is my dawning realization that I and many others—maybe you yourself—could easily be classified as criminals. Indeed, many of us are classified that way already.
"In Making Amends I do my best to describe the steps and ingredients needed for us to break out of that oppressive categorization and into the deliciously wild unknown."
