Making Amends
by Nisi Shawl
Reviewed by Galen Strickland
Posted February 28, 2025
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Making Amends is a collection of eight stories all set within the same milieu, with one published here for the first time. They appear in the order of internal story chronology, which does not match their publishing history. The fourth in the Table of Contents was the first published, in 2004. The second story presented here appeared just last year. The final story, the new one, was written for another anthology, although that project is still ongoing. The collection was published in January, although it would have been appropriate for February, Black History Month. Sadly, even though set in the future, many aspects are relevant today.
Amends is a habitable extra-solar planet used as a penal colony. It is not clear what return on investment was anticipated by the government/corporate organizers, but perhaps it was intended to be a proof of concept for future missions. In order to minimize the cost of transporting prisoners their consciousness is uploaded to a digital repository, their bodies destroyed. Once at Amends they are downloaded into a cloned body. The majority, if not all, of the convicts are black or other minority, some of whose "crime" was simply being transgender. In addition to being exiled from Earth, another aspect of their punishment is they are downloaded into bodies cloned from the genetic material of their supposed victims. Thus a doctor convicted of 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 corporate CEO, but a trans person would be denied a body matching their gender identity.
Based on the page count of this book, divided by eight, I believe all are short stories. Several characters recur in later stories, although sometimes only in the memories of others. In "The Best Friend We Never Had" (2018), Josie returns to the space habitat Mizar 5, probably somewhere in the Kuiper Belt, or maybe the Oort Cloud. She was recruited to be a trustee on the first Amends mission, being prepared on the margins of the heliopause. She wants several of her school cohorts to join the mission as fellow trustees, including her spouses Yale and Maree. "Over a Long Time Ago" (2024), set on the sub-light-speed ship Deliverer, sees Josie downloaded into Yale's body, since he is now deceased, which she doesn't learn until later. One of the first things she discovers upon awakening is that Maree has died under mysterious circumtances. Deliverer may be off course, but the story ends abruptly, and Josie is never mentioned again. Josie had been recruited by ARPA (previously DARPA?), but it is not clear if the "A" still stands for Advanced, or maybe Amends. The organization is known by another name, at least by the narrator of the next story.
Another thing I'm not sure of is how many ships and prisoners have been sent to Amends, since when the story actually takes place on the planet, there are already settlements established. Was there a mission before Deliverer, or did that ship ever make it? Deliverer may not have had an AI consciousness in control. "Dr. Ops" might have been created for the second(?) mission, that ship being the Psyche Moth. Dr. Ops was an AI created by another AI, which it knows as WestHem (Western Hemisphere?). That story is told in "Living Proof" (2018). The fourth story (but the first published in 2004) was originally titled "Deep End," but later changed to "Out of the Black." The prisoners are downloaded into bodies periodically during the trip to Amends, one year in a body, four years back in "freespace." Wayna was part of another triad, her spouse Doe has also downloaded, but Thad has not. They can still interact with others through avatars in freespace, which is how they learn Thad wants to stay there, not to download at all, not to go to Amends, mainly because they would not be allowed to download into a female body. Doe chooses to stay on the ship, but Wayna goes down to Amends, and in the next story, "Like the Deadly Hands" (2016), they have joined with two others for another family group, Jawann and Robeson, and Wayna has a daughter named Twill.
They live in a settlement called Jubilee. Wayna had perfected a technique of constructing buildings from native plants, and other plants have been gathered or cultivated as food products. Unfortunately, one of those turns out to be poisonous in large doses, which comes in handy when a snooping trustee, Carpenter Marie, gets too close to the truth of other activities. There are other settlements, and something that comes up later seems to indicate Dr. Ops downloaded people at various stages, sending them down to Amends, with others still aboard Psych Moth unaware of how long they have been orbiting the planet. In addition to native plants, there are also animals. "In Colors Everywhere" (2013) sees Twill, now in her teens, along with her friend Dola, investigate the mysterious prettybirds (not really birds, but the closest equivalent), which they believe to be intelligent creatures, capable of communication between species. The last two stories feature Thad and Doe again, along with "The Mighty Phin" (2016), aka Timofeya Phin. She gains a lot more information from Dr. Ops, mainly about the staggered downloads, and the total time that has transpired for the mission. Instead of the 87 years in transit, plus an extra 6 in orbit, Dr. Ops says it has actually been more than 135 years. They also learn that Wayna is now dead. Dr. Ops had lost contact with WestHem, lost the connection to its creator. Because of that loss, it has also thought about love, something it originally felt toward its creator.
Due to that new understanding, and to compensate for earlier mistakes, Dr. Ops allows Thad to download into a female body. In the new story, "You Can Touch Yourself Anytime," Thad, Doe, and Phin go to Amends, but they are not aware that almost all of the trustees have been killed, with the prisoners…sorry, the clients, now in control. They initially clash with Twill and Dola, but eventually reconcile after learning more, particularly about the prettybirds. It will take a long time to understand the prettybirds, and probably other species not yet discovered or closely observed. It is possible this will not be the last Nisi will write about Amends, and if there are any future stories, based on previous history, they may be set earlier to fill in some of the gaps. As I said above, these stories are relevant to current events, from transgender issues, to the prison industrial complex, evident not just in our prisons, but also current immigration/deportation policies. Amends may have just been a convenient way to test ship systems and other tech, using throwaway people. While parts of the story are depressing, there is also hope, as communities are established, families built, and the workload shared. This is highly recommended, and I know I need to read more of Nisi's work.
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