Candle in the Sun

by Robert Wells

THE SEA MOANED AROUND WITH MANY VOICES—
but to Gascon they all cried "Despair!"

Trapped at the bottom of the ocean when disaster struck, and his world was drowned, Gascon was left to mourn the passing of mankind, and to send forlorn messages on his useless telex in the vain hope that someone somewhere would answer.

And one day an answer came...

...which plunged Gascon into a vortex of horror and suspense which nearly cost him the last shreds of his sanity. A sentient robot called Clavelle... the twisted Arcadians and the monsters they planned to loose upon the surface... the Marins, dwellers in and rulers of the Deeps... the savage birds, creatures from a waking nightmare...

Genres: Science Fiction

160 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1971

About the author

UK writer, born Frank Charles Robert Wells on 31 January 1929 in London, that began publishing Science Fiction with "The Machine that was Lovely" for the Observer in 1954.
Other works:
* The Parasaurians (1969);
* Candle in the Sun (1971);
* Right-Handed Wilderness (1973) and
* The Spacejacks (1975).

Reviews

[Bryan Singleton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Candle in the Sun by Robert Wells was published in 1971. Unlike his first novel (Parasaurians), which had 4 main characters throughout, Candle in the Sun focused on Ray Gascon and his obsession with Clavelle, a robot or woman (I won’t say which). The first few chapters were reminiscent of the 1995 film Waterworld. Mutants that could swim underwater were called “Marins” in Candle in the Sun and Kevin Costner was called “The Mariner” in Waterworld. When Gascon describes/explores the ruins of a city underwater, I found myself picturing the scene in Waterworld when Costner showed Jeanne Tripplehorn the dirt on the seafloor. The similarities with Waterworld quickly diminished once Gascon decided to enter one of the buildings and met the Arkadians, another group of mutants. At that point, I was reminded of the novel The Hero of Downways, written by Michael G. Coney in 1973.

The Arkadians didn’t believe that Gascon came from the surface, since all of humanity had fled the Earth in Arks. One of the Arks failed during takeoff and left a group of humans stranded, which came to call themselves the Arkadians. They lived exclusively in submerged buildings and other structures containing pockets of air. The Arkadians put Gascon into the Shelter, where he was to be on probation until it was felt he could be trusted to roam freely. The Shelter contained the most horribly deformed mutants and were monitored by Benjamin, the most deformed mutant of them all. Benjamin played a pipe and danced, often making Gascon dance with him; they became fast friends.

Eventually Gascon was released from the Shelter and was given a job in a biology lab that turned hallucinogenic fungi into food. He was also provided with a wife, named Galata. I won’t go into the details surrounding Gascon’s experiences with the fungi and Galata other than saying they are absolutely bizarre and left me in a state of shock mixed with envy and disgust. Tiny albino people that reminded me of the white forest creatures in Princess Mononoke were responsible for trafficking people in the dark, as lights were a rarity. Gascon escaped from the Arkadians and resumed his pursuit of Clavelle. The Arkadians firmly denied her existence.

[Ray Savarda · Rating 2 out of 5]

Rather disjointed.
A future apocalypse floods the earth so only small tops of skyscrapers and tall mountains are above water, the struggle for survival by one man against several groups of mutant-type beings that live underwater or in some of the abandoned buildings. Several large gaps in logic / reasoning in the story that really bothered me.

[Rebecca Yager · Rating 3 out of 5]

The cover drew me in. The first chapter drew me in even further with the creepy Marins and the fascinating post apocalyptic submerged world and the lone survivor living in an island chain of sky scrapers. But somewhere soon after the plot takes off, it stalls a bit and wanders into weirdness. Right now I can't even remember how it ended, which will probably make me curious enough to scan the last chapter again to jog my memory. The setting stayed with me far more than the story itself. It was interesting, but it could have been better. Making dolphins creepy was a surprisingly cool idea, and their motives for saving the POV character were vague and mysterious. I wish we had gotten to actually meet them.