Man in suspended animation wake to sterile planet, gets cloned

Question

For some reason, I remember this book being called, "Leviathan", but I can't seem to find any reference anywhere.

The protagonist, Larry Deaver, is injured and placed into suspended animation.

He is awoken several centuries later to find a sterile planet, populated by modified humans with no thumbs who live in underground cities.

He escapes to the outside, where he meets up with "wild" humans and a submarine that had returned after a failed star-seeding mission and began to re-seed the earth and its oceans with unmodified life.

At one point, a clone of Larry himself is made to hunt down and destroy the natural humans.

I'd like to identify the author and book. I read this sometime in the 70s.

Answer 1

I think the answer is The Godwhale by T J Bass published in 1974.

The plot synopsis form Wikipedia says:

The protagonist, Larry Dever, is gravely injured resulting in a radical surgical procedure, a hemicorporectomy, in which tissue below the waist is removed. He is outfitted with a set of intelligent mechanical legs, a "manniquin", and is placed into suspended animation until the damaged tissue can be restored.

He wakes at a time when cloning technology can replace his legs, although for a price. Years before he was awakened, a clone, or "bud child", was created and is now a thriving young boy without language.

Horrified by the prospect of his child being sacrificed to provide him with a new lower body, Larry opts to return to suspended animation. His clone is called, Dim Dever.

Larry awakens again in a nightmare future.
The 'Hive' or human population within its computer-supported subterranean culture ruthlessly hunts, kills, and recycles anyone who does not conform.

So the name you remembered was almost the same, and Leviathan and Whale are similar enough to get confused with each other.