The story describes the voyage of Mike Hoani, a research linguist, through the seas that cover Kainui, a waterworld that has been settled by descendants of Polynesians, trying to recreate something of their ancient lifestyle. Much must have already happened on Kainui before Mike's landing because the oceans are destructively alkaline and devoid of life. Now, though, floating cities exist and traders cross the seas, harvesting the pseudo-life that collects the minerals and riches of the seas (as Polynesians would have harvested sea cucumbers, or others spermaceti).

I would have like to know more about the pseudo-life. Each one - I thought of them as giant jellyfish-like, but that could just be me - must at some time have been set going by the original Kainuins. I would have like to know more  - some must have had an original purpose, others may have evolved into an ecological niche - but Mike and his two hosts never seem interested, while the child with them is more interested in becoming a Polynesian Hornblower. On the other hand Mike never develops his interest in language either. This has the consequence that if the significance of the title was ever mentioned it escaped me.

The one strong scientific point seems to be made only indirectly: when pseudo-life has been invented it will occupy ecological niches and mutate just as life has done. And humans will live on alkali seas on distant planets in their best equivalence to life in the seas on earth, exploiting their surroundings.

With the long obituaries in the broadsheets (and another good one on BBC Radio Five Live) all mentioning Clement's tendency to play up the hard science and play down his characterisation I read with a particularly open mind. However, the evidence is against him. It also shows in the lack of copy-editing. Tor must have been very liberal with the manuscript he delivered, because in some places it does not make sense (on page 156, for instance, there is a six line sentence beginning "They were relieved …" that shows this at its worst), while the style throughout the book is to throw subordinate clauses into the middle of sentences when clarity would have demanded that each be rephrased. Consequently, this reads like a first draft in which Hal Clement tried to catch his ideas, and which he never reworked.

Ten years ago Robert Silverberg's THE FACE ON THE WATERS was a good fantasy about a waterworld, while since I first saw it at the cinema I have been a fan of Costner's film. I would have like this to be an equivalent in hard sf. It is not, and it is a poor tribute to a major figure in sf.