An interesting novel of the cultural clash between a patriarchal human culture (the Terrene) and a matriarchal society. Delyafam is a water world, populated by a number of water dwellers and amphibians, including the Leviathan of the title which makes only a brief appearance. The dominant lifeform is a humanoid race, the Delyene, whose females are long lived, intelligent and in some cases belligerent, following a way of life which values honour highly. The males by contrast are shorter lived, dependent, sexually alluring, and perform valuable work such as weaving and pottery making. All the usual feminine traits (from a human point of view) are assigned to males, who are 'boys' and become devoted servants to a single female, forming her household and acting as her sexual partners, as well as keeping the (barter) economy turning over. All females start off in barracks where they gradually work their way up and are adopted by one of the main families or are 'written off' as 'lumpen'. Those who are adopted set up households and serve the family who adopted them. It isn't very clear what the lumpen end up doing.

The Delyene physical norm is an orange skin and no hair - the protagonist, The Kimassu Lady, is a genetic 'sport' who has pale skin and therefore will not be permitted to breed. It gradually becomes evident over the course of the story that the Delyene spawn, and produce lots of 'sprats' which are nursed by the males in broodpouches. The Kimassu Lady is an officially sanctioned torturer, whose job is to bring into line anyone who offends against their religion, customs and ways of life - there is no codified law. In fact, the supposed lack of a written language among the Delyene is one aspect which permits the humans to classify them as primitives.

The Terrans are on Delyafam because it is on an intersection of trade routes and because, it becomes evident, the Terran way is to move in and offer the dominant lifeform a longevity drug on which they become dependent and then to more or less enslave them, under the threat of withdrawing the drug. This policy hasn't worked on Delyafam because - unknown to the humans - the females are already very long lived, so they have always refused the drug. The Terrans erroneously assume the Delyene to be shortlived, because a group whom they imprisoned and ran tests on didn't last longer than another ten years - all the test subjects were males and it never crossed the minds of the humans that the lifespan might differ so widely between sexes.

The Kimassu Lady is embroiled in a power struggle between her sponsor and another senior female, which is made more complicated by the presence of the humans - her work brings her into contact with them. One, Neill, has trespassed into the Delyene religious centre and is placed in her charge to be interrogated before he is put to death - however, he is an untypical human and the Kimassu Lady becomes quite fond of him, as he freely discloses lots of interesting and disquieting facts about his people. Neill is an agent (for whom, it is unclear) who opposes the official practices and has sympathy for the 'natives' although he also tends to view them as primitives. The Kimassu Lady eventually becomes drawn into the human power struggle and suffers the violent and misogynistic attitudes of the males first hand.

As a minor point, the cover of this edition includes inaccuracies. Firstly, no Delyene has a navel - they don't reproduce like mammals. Secondly, both sexes wear kilts which show their status/job role/family by woven patterns, rather than a plain bikini bottom. Thirdly, the headgear shown is what is forced upon the Kimassu Lady by her captor at one point - she would just be bald. (For information, a review I read said that the females wouldn't have breasts, but in fact there is a understated explanation, to do with glands for eliminating excess salt, taken in when the Delyene go into the sea, so that isn't a mistake.)

The book suffers from a couple of issues. Firstly, the human males are unredeemingly patriarchal, misogynistic, colonialist, etc. and we don't see any human females although we're told that they have gone to the Delyene in the past when humans were trying to establish a presence on the planet. Even Neill tries to rape TKL - he discovers this is impossible because, it isn't spelled out, but it seems the females don't have the 'plumbing' to make it possible except when they voluntarily take part in sex. In fact, Delyene females are able to force themselves on males if they wish. Secondly, the last part of the book is a whistlestop tour of what happens over an unspecified but long time, at least several years and probably a lot longer, as the Kimassu Lady leads a resistence movement. If written now rather than in the early 1980s, the book would probably be three times longer to handle all that, or else would be turned into a series. As it is, it suffers greatly from a lot of events being summarised as the Kimassu Lady looks back, so they are sketchy and read like a synopsis. This doesn't make what we are told all that credible. It's a shame as the main character is engaging, and the various cultural misunderstandings and exchanges are interesting. But ultimately there are too many loose ends - for example, why does nothing happen after she tells Neill's colleagues what has been going on, and how the intelligence and technology of her species has been deliberately played down? The whole conclusion is so rushed it loses all cohesion and ultimately there are too many frustrating unanswered questions for the reader. ( )

Reviewed on SF Mistressworks: http://sfmistressworks.wordpress.com/2012/01/15/leviathans-deep-jayge-carr/ ( )

A slightly disturbing but brilliant interaction between human and humanoid alien. Perhaps we as a species should never be allowed to reach the stars? ( )