Leviathan's Deep

by Jayge Carr

Delyafam is our world! And these "human" strangers had best move warily here! I am the Kimassu Lady; my duty is to restore equity. "Madame Judge-and-jury," Neill, the dead Terren walking, calls me. "Grem; policechief." Words. Terre words. Though I have learned their language, I cannot understand them. So many their "technology"; their "war"; their males unnaturally the rulers; their lack of all female virtues, especially honor. Neill claims we are outgunned, outmanned, and outscienced. Worse, my ethical, fiercely conservative people are contemptuous of dangers they cannot understand and will not see; dare I defy...yet I must somehow drive these "guests" who-would-be-conquerors from our blue seas. I restore equity. There--must--be--a--way......a moving fascinating tale of two opposed alien cultures.

Genres: Science Fiction, Feminism

213 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 1979

About the author

Jayge Carr is the pen name of science fiction and fantasy author Margery Ruth Morgenstern Krueger (July 7, 1940–December 20, 2006), also known as Margery Krueger and Marj Krueger. She is best known for her "Rabelais" series.

Reviews

[Pam Baddeley · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.

[Ian Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

On one level this is a first encounter science fiction novel told from the alien point of view. Though actually the space-faring humans arrived and established a base on the non-space-faring Delyene’s world some decades earlier. But the amphibious Delyene are incurious about these creatures from space and have also managed to keep the humans at arm's length from Delyene society.

The Kimassu Lady is a bit of a freak in Delyene society but she has prospered by both being good at her job and better than others at social climbing. Her job means that she has more contact with humans than other Delyene and she learns more than she wants to about them, and this is her story.

While the two species are superficially similar (the Delyene are humanoid) there are many biological and social differences that lead to both species to continually jump to the wrong conclusions about each other. These differences and telling the story from the Delyene point of view allows the reader to see humans as the outsiders. The humans are obsessed with technology and money and have a patriarchal society while the matriarchal Delyene are focused on manual skills and their myths and legends. Each species regards the other as inferior. But one species has misjudged.

Ultimately this is a novel about gender politics and colonization. It is partly a commentary on how much patriarchy is baked into human society (and our biology) that it is very hard work for the author to successfully portray a matriarchal society where the humanoid female Delyene can physically and sexually dominate males of both species.

Unfortunately, the ending of the book is the weakest point, it is too rushed and cliched, which takes away from what is otherwise a strong and memorable story with a kick-ass female protagonist. Despite its faults, this story and The Kimassu Lady joins C J Cherryh's Morgaine and Chanur stories as memorable sci-fi creations.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story reminded me a lot of THE BIRTHGRAVE, in that we follow the wild road of a powerful female protagonist, with much commentary on sexual politics. The observations were in some ways much more cutting in THE BIRTHGRAVE, but LEVIATHAN'S DEEP has the tighter story and no deus (or dea) ex machina.

One thing I wasn't sure about is why/how the Delyene women seem so irresistibly erotic to the human men - though that's very likely Carr's point, and the perspective discontinuity is intentionally sharp and artificially heightened - and how Kimassu of the Deylene was able (through a glass darkly) to grok some principles of "Terrene magics" but the star-faring Terrans were fucking up ET contact this badly.

Props for the ending, too - Kimassu is much changed by her adventure among Terrans, but not completely remade into something utterly un-Delyene.

[Alicia Ehrhardt · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked Leviathan's Deep, Jayge Carr, because the Lady Kimassu is both NOT human and relatable to a human. So you can understand a reasonable proportion of what and why she does, without getting it all.

I'm not good with too non-human. Carr keeps the balance nicely close to the end, where the personal story turns 'survival of a society and planet' story. Still good, but the one thing you hoped would happen, doesn't - and for a very good reason.

It is bittersweet because the human and the not-quite-human get very close first.

[Erik Graff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Margery Ruth Morgenstern Krueger (7/7/40–12/20/06) wrote this, her first novel, about the interaction of matriarchal and patriarchal cultures and persons raised within them in a science fiction context. The matriarchy, interestingly, forms the frame of reference for the reader, many of the virtues commonly claimed by males in our society being seen as the particular character of women in theirs.

[Damon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really very good. This is one that needs to be republished with a better cover.In some ways it is a story of how hard things can be for you if you are a woman rather than a man, but really it is just about colonialism.

[Mattie · Rating 4 out of 5]

First of all, let me say that this is not my normal reading material. I don't read very much "older" Sci-Fi, as it usually feels cheesy and dated. While Leviathan's Deep did feel dated to some degree, it didn't take away from the book at all.

I actually picked the book up just to have something to keep me occupied for a moment, and expected not to read more than a few pages. But a few pages was all it took to suck me in. It had a very unique story and I greatly enjoyed it.

It is NOT a very happy story, and there is a lot of sorrow to be had. There are things I would have written differently, but that's why it's not my book!

Overall, it's an excellent story that explores themes such as the driving force behind patriarchy, the necessity of rules and regulations throughout a society, the innate sense of superiority that the human race possesses, and even what the flaws of a society ruled by females might be.

Overall, it was an excellent story and was greatly enjoyable. I'm not sure if this book will be easy to find for most, since it seems to be a fairly old (and not every well known) novel, but if you enjoy fantasy/sci-fi at all, and/or enjoy stories involving studies of human nature, as well as matriarchy vs. patriarchy, I highly recommend it.

[Otto]

A

[Catching Shadows · Rating 3 out of 5]

Note: this review is mostly based on what I remember when I read it back in the nineties.

This book is very much a book of its time. It tries to examine sexism and imperialism through the lens of a male human journalist and an female alien magistrate. It does this with varying levels of success. The patriarchal humans are attempting some Poppy War bs and the matriarchal Delyafam are not having with it...though it's also clear that the Delyafam are losing the war by inches.

While I liked it the first couple times I read it, I disliked most of the last third. Reason: the ending was sad and upsetting.