The Limping Man

The Salt Trilogy #3

by Maurice Gee

In this compelling final volume of The Salt Trilogy, Hana narrowly escapes Blood Burrow after her mother chooses to swallow poison rather than die in the great witch-burning in People's Square. Deep in the forest she meets Ben, son of Lo, and Hawk, who becomes her silent protector and guide. But even in the forest there is no peace. When they learn of the advancing armies that will wipe out all those who have sought refuge in the wilderness, they realize they have no choice but to return to the city and confront the terrible power of the Limping Man head-on. The problem is they know that, unless they discover the secret to his power, none of them--alone or together--is strong enough to fight the evil the Limping Man embodies.

Genres: Fantasy, Dystopia, Young Adult, Fiction, Science Fiction

208 pages, Library Binding

First published March 29, 2010

About the author

Maurice Gough Gee was a New Zealand novelist. He was one of New Zealand's most distinguished and prolific authors, having written over thirty novels for adults and children, and having won numerous awards both in New Zealand and overseas, including multiple top prizes at the New Zealand Book Awards, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in the UK, the Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellowship, the Robert Burns Fellowship and a Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement. In 2003 he was recognised as one of New Zealand's greatest living artists across all disciplines by the Arts Foundation of New Zealand, which presented him with an Icon Award.
Gee's novel Plumb (1978) was described by the Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature to be one of the best novels ever written in New Zealand. He was also well-known for children's and young adult fiction such as Under the Mountain (1979). He won multiple top prizes at the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults and in 2002 he was presented with the prestigious Margaret Mahy Award by the Children's Literature Foundation in recognition of his contributions to children's literature.

Reviews

[Courtney Johnston · Rating 4 out of 5]

A boy, a girl, a threat, a quest, and a lot of family baggage - it's a testament to Maurice Gee's aw-inspiring skills as a writer that he can take this well-worn combination and breathe new life into not once but three times in this trilogy. (And not to mention in the Halfmen of O, his other classic, shit-scary, YA trilogy).

I've taken a long break between 'Salt' and 'Gool' and now 'The Limping Man', but tomorrow I'm going down to Unity and buying the lot so I can read backwards. I have a feeling that 'Salt' is the best book of the series - the most engaging characters, the freshest and most detailed depiction of a new world and new people. 'Gool', if I remember rightly, was, like the middle book of LOTR, more of a journey book - lots of walkin' and talkin'. As good a read as 'The Limping Man' is (and it is a good read - fast paced, and with Gee's characteristically tough, taut writing) I found myself reaching into my book-memory and coming up empty-handed when I tried to recall all the back story; 'The Limping Man' stands alone, but will be better in context.

Anyway. A boy, a girl, a threat, a quest, and a lot of family baggage. Let's start with the threat, the Limping Man - frail, pink faced, small mouthed, reedy voiced (a very Margaret Mahy villain, actually), but somehow mentally charged in such a way that he holds the men of Gee's world in sway.

The girl is Hana - the book opens with her running along the broken streets of Blood Barrow, heeding her mother's dying instructions for her to escape the city and never come back. Her mother has been caught up in one the Limping Man's force's sweeps of the city, catching 'witches' for public burning. Hana's mother poisons herself rather than be captured alive; there is just enough time to force Hana down into an escape tunnel underneath their shack and roll the stone back into place.

Hana makes it out into the Country, where she meets Ben - one of a small family of former City dwellers, who like the Limping Man have powers of telepathy and mind control. That family's story constitutes 'Salt' and 'Gool', and I'll catch up on that separately. They discover, one way and another, that the Limping Man is amassing forces to launch a 'cleansing' of the lands of the 'vermin' like themselves, and the quest - ta da! - is to stop that.

So, yes; familiar territory. What makes Gee stand apart is the force of his writing, and the way he makes standard features of dystopian futuristic settings feel new and real. Here he is on 'poverty', a good dystopian staple. Hana is hiding in the tunnel under her former home, after her and her mother's meager belongings have been kicked over and broken by the Limping Man's soldiers:

At a time she judged to be noon she heard shuffling feet and hoarse whispers in the shelter. Scavengers had crept in and were sniffing and scraping through the wreckage. They would find Mam's knife - she heard them find it - and some rags of bedding and a shirt and hood and sandals worn through on the soles. Little more. There was smashed wood that might be used on fires, and the iron pot sitting on ashes in the corner. No food in the pot. She heard their grunts of disappointment. Let them eat frogweed. The frogweed was still on the shelf. They went away and soon afterwards more whispering and creeping came, but this was a family, a man and a woman and two children seeking a better home than the one they had. She heard the woman sigh with pleasure - this was a much better place. Hana wished the scavengers had left the pot and rags for her.

Gee is good on pain, and waiting, and hunger, and fear. The best passage of the book, for my money, has Ben trying to escape underwater in the Swamp from the Limping Man's followers. Surrounded, he makes use of the only resources available to him - the reeds, and the body of a dead old woman who has just been shot through the chest three time with a crossbow:

Ben slid under Queenie's body, pushing eels out of the way. He surfaced in the gap between her and the reeds. The shouting of men, the sound of oars, came closer. He chose a reed, cut it below the water, and snapped off its top. Then he slid under Queenie, his head beneath hers where it butted into the reeds. He thrust the reed upwards through her hair, blew it free of water, and began to breathe. It was hard. For a moment he thought he would not get enough air. He changed to shallow breaths, using the top of his lungs. He could last that way if the boats were quick. He felt one bump Queenie's body. Her hair drifted, circling his throat. Eels thrashed away. Ben imagined he heard shouts and wondered if he was blacking out. He held on. There was enough air.

An oar scraped his side as the boat backed out of the reeds. Ben waited. One minute. Two. They were still close. He felt water shift as spearmen trod in the rushes by the shore. Then the movements stopped. Only the eels moved. He felt them nibbling the wound in his thigh.

Slowly he let his face rise through Queenie's hair. Blue sky, a reed wall, half her face, one eye. ...

Ben sank again. He stabbed at the nibbling eels with his knife - and all afternoon he kept it up, rising, breathing, sinking, repulsing the eels. Queenie's body wanted to float away. He took a handful of her hair and pulled it back each time. The sun edged down the sky - taking its time. When night came he would move, swim silently down the length of the swamp to the place where it drained into the sea. Until then he must lie alongside his companion.

My only real issue with 'The Limping Man' is that the ending - well, it sucked. It really was a damp squib. Everything turned out just as it should, but the big unveil was a big disappointment. I can believe in telepathy and mind control for the sake of a story, but not this. Having said that - a very good trip can be worth an underwhelming destination.

[Safa]

I thought the book was okay.
I kind of expected there to be a little more action. The reason why I expected that was because Hari and Hanna both were together at one point before they were separated. When they separated and Lo found Hanna, I expected Lo to think of her as a betrayer because she left him. Later on, I also expected hawk to not come back and symbolise forgetting but, he did come back and symbolize friendship.

[Preston Green · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book I'm reading is “The Limping Man” by Maurice Gee. The setting of the book is in New Zealand, in a small town. The main character in the book is Hana. The protagonist in the story, he is a young boy that becomes involved with the strange events the limping man is causing. When we went to the library, this book really caught my eye because of the fun colors and interesting title.

Hana barely escapes the limping man after her mother swallows poison rather than dying in the great witch-burning in People's Square. Far in the forest she meets Ben, son of Lo, and Hawk, he becomes her silent protector and guide. But in the forest there is only war. When they learn that the armies will kill everyone who has no power in the woods. The kids realize they have no choice but to go back to the city and go against the terrible power of the Limping Man head-on. The problem is they know that they have to find the limping man's secret powers and none of them can go alone or together because they are not strong enough to fight the Limping Man.

I thought the end of the book was good but kind of left the readers on a cliffhanger. Everyone is released from his spell but Hanna and Ben aren't sure if he's really gone forever.
The limping man crumbles to his death which leaves Hana very concerned for her life. Since the limping man has powers she thinks about him using those powers to come back to life. Hana and Ben are very happy to be free from the limping man's spell and it's really exciting that they get to go back to their normal teenage lives. My favorite part is when the limping man crumbles and the author talks about Hana and Ben’s emotions and how happy they all are. Since the book was so down the whole time with everything going wrong that specific part brought the whole book back together.

This book was very interesting. So if you have a weird mind and like magic I think this book would be a favorite. If you like mysteries too this book could be good for you. Overall, The Limping Man is a very interesting book and I think most people will like it.

[Luca-19023]

I didn't really enjoy this book But I had to read a fantasy

[Linus B.]

Settled in middle age, the book “the Limping Man” tells the story of Hanna’s Journey through a world full of people with special abilities, with the goal of avenging her mother who was sentenced to burn by the limping man. After the first few chapters, I thought I would like the book, because of the place it is set in but over time it became hard to remember all the unusual names. Therefore it was hard for me to concentrate on the Story. Nevertheless, the overall Story is interesting and the book should be perfect for people who read a lot of fantasy books.

[LPL Staff Reviews · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like the first two novels in the series, The Limping Man drops a deteriorating dystopian society into a fantasy world inhabited by humans and non-humans with the ability to communicate telepathically with each other as well as animals. However, where the first two novels explore the negative impacts of colonialism and racism, The Limping Man focuses on those of expansionism and religious fanaticism. The society still oppresses a portion of the population and degrades women of all social classes. The descriptions provided still paint a vivid picture without going into great detail and becoming cumbersome to the pacing of the story. And, the writing style still seems aimed at a younger teen audience while the subject matter and language are more mature making this novel/series appear to be geared towards older teens.

Much of my opinion of The Limping Man is also my opinion of the entire trilogy as a whole. It is a short, fast-paced, plot driven novel that returns to the more gritty dystopian beginnings of the first. I enjoyed the story, fast-paced and short vivid descriptions; however, for once I would have liked a little more detail in some places. The story jumps right into a brand new character nonexistent in the first two books instead of gradually shifting perspectives from the previous main characters to the new one, like the second novel did. Because of this it took me longer to get into the story and become attached to the new character. The main characters had admirable qualities, but their stubborn refusal to listen to anybody or use their abilities aggravated me. Also, while I preferred that the main characters had fewer qualms with ensuring the villain would never be a problem again, I was bothered by the inconsistency between this and the first two novels. I thought the ending, like the first two novels was convenient and aimed at younger teen audiences. And, though TheLimping Man is the final volume in the trilogy, it did not wrap anything up. Though all three novels revolve around the same family and city, there is no continuous overarching plot that gets resolved, which I would have preferred, and the dystopian societies are set to continue to crop up at the end of the story.

My criticisms aside, overall I enjoyed the story. I think fantasy fans may enjoy both the novel by itself and the series as a whole more than dystopian fans. I also think it may appeal to fantasy fans looking to read a dystopia, but don't want to give up reading about fantasy worlds, creatures and people with magical or supernatural abilities.

Lubbock Public Library Call#: YA FIC GEE - Godeke Branch

Amber S.
Librarian
Mahon Branch

Review originally published in the Abilene Public Library blog on August 9, 2013.

[Devin Krause]

The Limping Man is about how a girl named Hana from the burrows of a city the limping man controls escapes from him and meets a boy named Ben from his village deep in the forest. Together they team up and try to fight the Limping Man.

I wanted to keep reading this book because I was curious on how a girl from the ruins of a city and a boy from a village deep in the forest was going to take down the Limping Man. The Limping Man controlled armies around the world and had the power to control people. Overall I give the book a 3.5 out of 5 stars.

First of all, The book’s plot sustains the conflict on how strong the Limping Man is. Throughout the book it lets you know how the Limping Man is getting strong and it show just how strong he is. In the Limping Man’s city Blossom and Hubert, who are know as the most powerful humans, fight the Limping man. They get locked in a mind battle over the citizens. Blossom and Hubert and trying to gain control over the people, but the Limping man has to strong of a grasp on the people. Blossom and Hubert are soon defeated and captured by the Limping Man. This intrigued me on how Hana and Ben where going to take down the Limping Man after witnessing the two most powerful human defeated.

In addition to a sustaining conflict, I like how sometimes the plot can take an unexpected twist at times like how Blossom and Hubert were defeated. (spoilers alert)In the book Hana and Ben are going back to the city through a swamp so nearby so they can get closer undirected. They run into a shack that a character named Queene lives. After taking to her they find out that she is the Limping Man’s mom. She says she will tell them how he got so strong if they go and get 3 pigeons. A day later they come back to find Queene dead and the place swarming with guards that almost kill them. This caught me off guard because I was sure that this was how they were going to figure out a way to kill the Limping Man.

So, all in all, The Limping Man, kept me intrigued though the entire story. I was curious on how a powerful such as the Limping Man could ever be defeated. With the sudden twists in the plot keep thing from going dull. So, if you like a unpredictable book about two unlikely heroes against a godlike foe then this will certainly satisfy you.

[Crowinator · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Salt series (Salt and Gool are the first two) is a really different series in YA fantasy dystopias. Each one is linked loosely to the others, usually through side characters, but each tells its own story with a new character at the forefront. Each one is about a small group overcoming oppression and prejudice in their local communities. There's hardly any romance, and what is there is understated; the world-building is simple but evocative; and each one manages to be both scary and thought-provoking. The writing is spare and but evocative. In this volume, we follow Hana as she escapes the Burrows, which has been taken over by the Limping Man, who has the power to control minds. He's taken to burning women as witches, and one of them was Hana's mother. As Hana learns to survive in the forests, she teams up with Ben, son of Lo (from the previous book) to challenge the Limping Man's powers. This one is my favorite because of the the reveal of where the Limping Man's true powers come from (trust me, it's totally gross, creepy, and awesome, and it involves toads). Sadly, this series is too understated and different to fly off the shelves in my library, but I hope they at least find a small, appreciative audience.

[Tristen Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Limping Man by Maurice Gee is part of a trilogy that I like very much. I like it's main tone and context, most of all. It's sad, most of the time, but with hints of happiness and hope. It takes place in a time period much before very much technology, when men ruled by whatever means they could. The main power that people have in this book is the ability to "speak". It's a mental way of speaking. Projecting thought and orders to other minds from your own. The main protagonist is Hana, although she is not the only one. Hana lost her mother due to the Limping man, and spends her time after that seeking revenge on him. She meets Ben somewhere along the way, and together they do some adventuring and such, with the ultimate goal of killing the Limping Man. I would recommend this book to people who don't mind lots of realism. The good guy does not always win, and some things are simply hopeless in this book. I happen to love stories with realism. The good guy should not always win. If you like this book, I recommend the other 2 books in the series, since they have the same tone of realism.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

The final book of the Salt trilogy involves Hari and Pearl's grandson Ben. He's been raised by them, and doesn't quite fit into their world or his father's world (with the people). Back in the burrows Hana has just watched her mother die, and she seeks a way to take revenge on the Limping Man, who has caused her death. They meet in the forest where they try to discover the source of the Limping Man's power before he destroys them all.

While I enjoyed Salt, I had a hard time getting into Gool: The Salt Trilogy, Volume Two. The Limping Man reads more like Salt, and I enjoyed the continuation of previous character's stories and the introduction of Hana and Ben. It's a quick read, that fans of the series will devour.

[Hilary · Rating 2 out of 5]

“Limping Man” is the final book of the “Salt” trilogy. There are several story lines. One story revolves around Hari and Pearl’s grandson Ben, who has been raised by his grandparents, but doesn’t fit well in their world or his father’s world (with the people). Another story returns to the burrows, where Hana’s mother dies, choosing to swallow poison than die in the great witch-burning. Hana seeks revenge on the Limping Man, who caused her mother’s death. She must try to discover the Limping Man’s power source, which permits him to control minds, before he destroys them all.
“Limping Man” is reminiscent of “Salt,” the first book in the series. The theme of a small group overcoming oppression/prejudice provides a common thread throughout all three volumes. “Limping Man” stands alone, but is better in context. Fans of the dystopian series and genre will devour this quick read.

[Tibby]

Awesome. I love this whole trilogy. I can't say enough good things about it. I also can't write a review that does it justice.
All three books can stand on their own, so it isn't absolutely necessary to read them in order or even read all of them (although you should!). This one is probably the hardest to read without some knowledge of the first two books, but only because there is less description of the world where it takes place. On the other hand a large part of the story takes place in a part of the world where the other two books do not go and there is still plenty of description.
So the story is very dark and brooding. It's also quite savage. Again Gee includes and excellent and exciting story with a lot of great character development. I'm not sure I would say you can relate to the characters, but they are so well written that you can still root for them and feel for them.

[Sue Poduska · Rating 4 out of 5]

Absorbing and thrilling, the last installment in the dystopian Salt Trilogy is compelling and thought-provoking whether or not you’ve read the first two volumes. It begins with the death of Mam, Hana’s mother and sole mean of support in slums called the Burrows. Mam is seen as a threat to the charismatic, mysterious, and evil Limping Man. Hana learns to survive and befriends a number of figures, including Ben, a one-handed boy. Hana and Ben travel together and attempt to destroy the Man. Hana’s movements are a bit difficult to follow, even with the map provided. Also, the surprise ending is a bit predictable, though seeing how the author arrives there is worthwhile.

[Wendy · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars. A good ending to the series, and a good wrapping up for all of the characters involved. The baddie was bad (and creepy), and the twist at the end was a bit macabre and odd. I still find it weird that Blossom and Hubert left Ben and Hana to take their own path, knowing that they were just kids. Also, because each of these books had a different big bad in a different generation, it doesn't give the feeling that it's all over. I guess now that most/all of the people have left the city, we can imagine that things get kind of better though.

[Octavia Cade · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this is the best of the trilogy - even better than Salt, which I really enjoyed. I think what I like best about Gee's YA books is the sort of unsentimental, unflinching nature of both story and prose. It doesn't froth and get over-emotional; it doesn't look away from cruelty and horror and consequences, but it doesn't wallow in it either. And there's rarely any sickly-sweetness in the protagonists, or any dependency. Hana and Ben are half-feral and they're not sorry. Nor should they be - and it makes for really refreshing protagonists.

[Jen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Last in the Salt trilogy and a worthy final novel. Hana flees the ruined city when her mother is killed as a witch by the evil Limping man, who can control people's thoughts and actions. She is drawn into the fight against The Limping man, when she meets up with others who have fled the city, especially Ben, who has ...his own reasons to want to fight against the plans to conquer all the lands around the ruin.

[Angie · Rating 3 out of 5]

The second in this series is still my favorite, "The Limping Man" was such a short book, I didn't expect for it to have so many long and drawn out, even repetitive parts...but it did. The characters were very different from the ones in the previous books, and there were parts of "The Limping Man" that were really great, but the main story was too simple and I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would.

[irene · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was getting kinda sketchy there at the end, seeing where this would lead, but in the end, it all worked out, though I felt that the ending seemed rushed. Still I liked each was a book that didn't have cliffhangers and are more stand alone books, though it helped to understand the backgrounds of the other two books before reading this one.

[Val Fisher]

Still reading. Not as quick moving as Salt. This is the third in the trilogy.

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad, but not as good as Salt, which was definitely my favorite of the trilogy.

[Melisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just like Salt and Gool, I could not put this book down. A great Sunday read.

[JohnP · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book circles back to events in books 1 and 2 and tries to tie it all together. Everything comes down to the final scene. Talking to a hawk – really? Too much of a stretch (for me).

[Brandee Terry · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a pretty weird series. I liked the interaction between the characters.