Review: Escape From the Future by Paul Clayton
Paul Clayton, whose novella Crossing Over has been fêted on this site before, has now released an anthology of short stories. In Esape From the Future, Clayton serves up five short stories offering everything from modern-day comedy to eco-pocalyptic sci-fi.
Kindle Deal Alert: This title is on sale for .99 from April 18-24!
The stories
The types of stories here run quite a gamut. Perhaps gamut isn’t the right word; it might be something more akin to running a baseball diamond, with human politics and emotions going in every direction. The ride starts off with the eponymous novella Escape From the Future. Here, a family in 1960s San Francisco travels to present-day San Francisco, with the help of a time machine the grandfather had been working on in their basement. It’s briefly mentioned by the story’s main character, 14-year old Bobby, that grandpa had worked with Nikola Tesla in the 1930’s, and that upon the scientists’ death, the FBI seized his papers, “But they didn’t get all of them.”
Grandpa had briefly shown the machine to Bobby in secret, explaining how some of the controls work and ominously noting that “It won’t let me set it past 2025”. Grandpa suddenly turns up missing after spending the past months greiving his dead wife and slowly slipping into a depressive state. Bobby spills the beans about grandpa’s project, and the family piles in and makes the journey to the coordinates he’d last set, the modern-day Land of Needles, Bum Crap and Rampant Petty Larceny. That’s only the first half of the story, however; their culture shock upon arriving and what they discover when they finally find grandpa is when things really kick into gear. The contrast between the two eras, the seemingly impossibly fast societal decay of the city from a cultural and industrial mecca to city-sized third world nation are at the center of the story’s drama. Clayton’s masterful ability to write human pathos gives as a stark warning to what awaits America should the state’s ongoing crusade to break the final bonds holding the family together finally snap. It’s far and away the longest story in the bunch at 67 pages, and once you’re through it, you’ll be emotionally exhausted, but will nonetheless feel compelled to finish the journey.
Following that is Human Exclusion Zone, which finds Baird Dorsey, a champagne eco-activist out on the town about to bed a beautiful and mysterious young woman. He’s the figurehead behind the radical Bring Back Nature movement, a cause so pro-nature it’s anti-human. In an effort to cede more of the country back to its wild natural state, he spearheaded the formation of the first Human Exclusion Zone in the Pacific Northwest. When we fast-forward to that night when he finds his date, a bunch of cash and one of his hovercars missing, there are ten such zones. The establishment of these areas has pushed humans to second-class citizenry or to survive in the wilds, squatting in small illegal camps, ever a thorn in the BBN’s side.
Baird naturally isn’t feeling the pinch of the rules his organization has foisted on others; his fame among our social betters has set him up with a palatial house right on the border of his zone, overlooking the beautiful wildlands and far removed from the dangers within. Nouveau riche art lines his walls, two hovercars (well, one at the time of the story) are in his garage, and a voice-responsive AI is at his beck and call everywhere he goes. He eventually tracks his stolen hovercar to a spot in the nearby Human Exclusion Zone, and decides to follow and see if he can talk some sense into his beautiful young date. He may just be magnanimous enough to forgive her impulsiveness if she was willing to show him an acceptable level of gratitude. Now, if he could only figure out why the car’s Cabin Temperature light wasn’t working . . .
Following that is the short but quite funny Sometimes a Great Lotion. This 2,300 word short about a writer trying to sell a script of the same name without compromising his art comes across as an almost cathartic work, albeit one every fiction writer who’s ever gotten a rejection letter will find themselves nodding their heads to. Our protagonist Carl gets rejected so often, it’s even happening in his dreams (he gives his elevator pitch to Oprah Winfrey). Early on, he bemoans his trials facing the TradPub watchmen thusly after one of his editors suggests he make his main character trans:
“This was my story, and I was not going to change it to fit some transitory doctrine. All the agents and editors were young, fresh out of the best schools—Vassar and Sarah Lawrence—and enamored of their role as cultural gatekeepers. How could I ever sneak my work past them?”
If any singular work by Clayton can sum up his sheer talent at the craft, this is the one; a writer writing about the emotional perils of writing will often come across as boring, narcissistic and self-indulgent in any but the most talented of hands. Clayton pulls it through. It’s part exorcism, part fever dream, and an absolutely bonkers and welcome lightening of tone after the previous two entries.
‘Til Death or Whatever begins with a doddering old lady, Ginny, stopping into her and her husband’s favorite Chinese restaurant for lunch. Carrying what appears to be some futuristic fishbowl mounted on top of a speaker, her waitress asks her where her husband Harold is. Ginny sadly explains that Harold died, but doesn’t tell her that his life force is in the swirling clouded liquid filling the bowl. Despite the somewhat weirdly comedic nature of its setup, the story is a gut punch. As I mentioned in my review of Clayton’s novella Crossing Over, he’s particularly good at writing the tragedies and dramas unique to old age. In this case, it’s the scary reality of facing the harder end of your life without the one you loved the most, at an age when less of society cares about you. For most of its run, it shines as weird humor, but there’s a nagging undercurrent of worry beneath it all that surfaces and swallows you whole right at the final words.
Finally, Adios, America is another longer story, and a banger of a closer. It originally appeared in another anthology, Appalling Stories 4, and I can see why it got chosen. In a nearby future where people are forced to surrender their lives to a process called Green Cremation at 65 to preserve resources, or prevent climate change, or whatever the party excuse is this month, our 70-year old protagonist is a homeless fugitive, on the run for having the audacity to want to live. The female double-minority President of a hyper-socialist progressive political party has just won her second term, and is doubling down on already authoritarian policies to usher out any traces of the Bad Old America.
Clayton uses the premise to delve more deeply into worldbuilding than he usually does here; this future sees the world as an open air prison where an infantalized population shuffles along, unaware of its own captivity. He tells off a group of young people in an electric self-driving car, unafraid of anyone pursuing him because he knows the doors won’t open until the vehicle has reached its destination. The petty theft he has to engage in to survive is easy enough, because people wander around constantly distracted by various devices. Public snitching on anyone over the age of 65 is common and encouraged. He’s managed to panhandle and pickpocket just enough money to get himself trafficked to Mexico, if he can make it to his planned transport date; but his plans gain a considerable wrinkle when one of the staff at a library he holes up in during the day starts to recognize him.
The characters
The scope of Clayton’s stories here vary wildly, and so to do the origins and motivations of his characters. From geriatric widows to teenage boys to middle-aged would-be authors, everyone occupying the tales in their respective worlds is fleshed out and fully human (even Oprah Winfrey). Even in short stories, it’s easy for the reader to connect to the characters on some level for the brief time you share with them.
The world
Again, this changes wildly from entry to entry, and the reader may find themselves with setting whiplash as the scene zips from a densely wooded forest where genetically engineered fauna prowl the night to a strip mall Chinese restaurant, but everything is richly detailed and steeps the reader in the story. Human Exclusion Zone especially drew me in. You know who’s incredibly awful at this? Guess.
The politics
While I praised Clayton for his political agnosticism in Crossing Over, whatever muzzle he had on his messaging has come quite a bit looser in this go ‘round. Adios, America is perhaps the most blantantly political piece, which should come as no surprise considering it originally ran with the likes of Paul Hair and David Dubrow. That’s not necessarily a strike against it, I thought it was the best story of the bunch, but politics are here in spades, dragging progressive policy through the mud with the subtlety of a shock jock. Likewise, the effects of the aftermath of years of untrammeled leftism is practically the entire point of the plot of Escape From the Future, and Human Exclusion Zone pulls zero punches in its pointing out the hypocrisy of the celebrity activist classes.
Your mileage for the tolerance of this sort of thing will vary of course, so reader beware. Clayton does a good job of using politics to shine a light on its often unintended (or worse, intended) consequences on the people that have to live under it. The addition of this human element makes what is in there more palatable. I’m generally not much for message fiction of any stripe, but enjoyed these stories nonetheless. The brief breather during Sometimes a Great Lotion and ‘Til Death or Whatever definitely helped.
Content warning
I had moderate depression after reading the book's story of the same name. This wasn't so much Clayton's fault as reading about 1960s San Francisco knowing what it turned into.
Who is it for?
Do you like well-described worlds? Characters with soul? Politics with a point? Pick up this book. It’s a one-man multi-genre showcase of how it’s done.
Why read it?
I’m a big fan of Paul Clayton; put plainly, the guy can write. This compilation shows his strengths in not just the speculative fiction we’re used to seeing from him, but in comedy and drama as well (I consider ‘Til Death or Whatever a very much a drama with a single sci-fi trapping). It’s quality fiction, pure and simple.