New Zealand Wars Trilogy

by Maurice Shadbolt

Here for the first time in one volume, are Maurice Shadbolt's three best-selling and award-winning novels The House of Strife, Monday's Warriors and Season of the Jew. Together they comprise his New Zealand Wars Trilogy, generally seen as New Zealand's finest historical fiction.

Drawing on real events in the New Zealand Wars from the 1840s to the 1860s, these novels are rich in humanity with a narrative both true and comic. For sheer storytelling, wild adventure and power there is nothing that can equal these extraordinary tales of colonial New Zealand, and the battles and skirmishes between Hone Heke, Titokowaru, Kimball Bent, Te Kooti and the often blundering Britsh Army.

Genres: Fiction

992 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Maurice Shadbolt was a major New Zealand fiction writer and playwright. He published numerous novels and collections of short fiction, as well as novellas, non-fiction, and a play. His writing often drew on his own family history. Shadbolt won several fellowships and almost every major literary prize, some more than once. He was capped Honorary Doctor of Literature by the University of Auckland in 1997.

Reviews

[Ang · Rating 5 out of 5]

A massive and very worthwhile read, I am awed by Mr. Shadbolts ability to weave characters and tale. Genius to publish this as a trilogy, chronologically based and published inverse of the books were written.

The wit and humour of the main protagonist, Ferdinand Wildblood, in the House of Strife; the mystery of the life of Kimball Bent and strategic wonder of Titokowaru, in Monday's Warriors; the evolution of both soldier-humanitarian Capt. George Fairweather, and Coates / Kooti, in The Season of the Jew; and more, all made for an engaging read.

The portrayal of colonial times Maori, colonists, soldiers and politicians complete with the contradictions, miscommunication and misunderstandings and the lack of attempts to bridge the cultural divide, both at personal and community levels were told in compelling fashion. The stoic and righteous post-Musket Wars Maori set against by citizen and politican alike - the racial outlook of the day - made for tragedy. The outcome is known but reading it still causes sadness at what was.

To my mind, The House of Strife should be placed next to the Gideons Bible in every hotel in the Bay of Islands, and likewise Monday's Warriors in Whanganui and The Season of the Jew in Gisborne. Whilst the latter two in particular make for quite dark reading, nonetheless these stories paint a vivid picture of the history to those locations, and, of early settler New Zealand.

Historic fiction at it's very finest.

[Angelique Simonsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed it but its old fashioned heavy way was hard to read

[Elede]

HOUSE OF STRIFE
A good book, flourished and elegant narrative. A bit too heavy sometimes, but it reads as a book written in the 19th century, which is commendable.
The story of Ferdinand Wildblood (and Henry Youngman), and Heke and The Duke Vs Nene and the British Empire.



'Where duty bids.'
'Must you?
You know as well as I that I am forbidden your company."
'Then I will come with you,' she announced.
Here was a pickle.
Impossible,' it pained me to answer.
'Why?'
"There is a war on,' I pointed out.
'It doesn't need you.'
I thought on that.
'I may need it,' I suggested.
'What for?'
'There is a ballad looking for a bard,' I explained.'At the moment it is running about like a headless chicken.'


Meanwhile the dance thundered on.There was a stamping of feet; a slapping of muscles; and finally, most vividly, a rolling of eyes and baring of tongues. Then weapons were held high. There was a nervous silence.
'Is it finished?' Hulme asked in a hoarse whisper.
'But for speeches,' I promised.
'And you are sure they are with us?'
'Reliably, sir,' I assured him.
"There is a God,' he announced.


I stood as if to leave. This was unduly hopeful.
If he is awaiting your return, there is no haste,' he said,
'What does that mean?'
'He will not attack until you have returned to his line.'
'Who knows?' I said with discomfort.
'And I may be in the mood for a story,' he explained.
What story?'
'Mine,' he ventured.
'That is a little premature.'
'So how many more flagstaffs must I fell?' he sighed.
'I think the present question is how many Britons. Not to speak of
how many Nenes.'
'Or the flagstaffs will be forgotten?'
'Or poorly recalled.'
'Why must that be?'
"There is no accounting for human nature,' I argued. 'Meanwhile I am no seer. A storyteller needs to be familiar with his plot. This one remains unreasonably reticent.'



What kind of war is this?'
'Ours,' he argued.
It is an unusually charitable recipe.'
"We do our best to season it with Christ,' he admitted.
My incredulity remained plain.
'War,' Moses explained with patience,'has enough hardship.
Why make it miserable?'


George then dismissed the party and urged them to do something happier with their lives. With a last salute to things of this world, George mounted the ladder and flourished his sword.Even in his long flannels, even as he filled with the lead of a Maori fusillade, he managed to cut a monumental figure; he seemed to float above the palisades before winging into the fortress. His fear of dying the undistinguished death of a ranker was baseless. The stain of Blackguard Beach was forgiven and forgotten. To this day, as I understand it, the Maori of northern New Zealand recount the tale of George Philpotts's demise with awe; he was the only Briton that day to view the interior of the Duke's fortress, albeit in his last moment. Passing travellers even place flowers on his grave, under a tall English oak. They believe it brings luck.


Legend is what we have when history is on holiday, which means most of the time.


All the same, I suspect that he may have writer's cramp, that form of palsy that comes from persisting too long with the pen when invention begins to fail. Perhaps the effort of fancying humankind upon this planet, and then filling the sky with sun, moon and stars,proved his downfall. He hasn't the dimmest notion of what to da with us next. So here we are, blundering about brutally, killing our own kind and often our own kin, waiting on him to resume his knotty narrative. Until then, until a celestial bugle calls belligerents back from their last battle, mourn the men-soldier and warrior-whose once luminous lives are now no more than dust in a dark universe.
Yes. No. Yes. Iam not mistaken. It is time to take my place in the story of stories. That is the whinny of a waiting horse beyond my window.That is a young Maori tenor ventilating his hymn with a wild warrior cry. That is Dinwiddie's businesslike bang on my door.


MONDAY'S WARRIORS

'One can breathe the silence,' Captain Clark went on. Listen,
Bent. Listen.'
Listening, Kimball was most aware of companionable breathing near his neck.
This as far as we're going, sir?' he asked.
I am making the point, Bent, that New Zealand woods may hold more than obstinate Maori rebels. That it may well hold moments rich in wonder.'
Yes, sir.' Kimball sensed something beyond his means
approaching. Captain Clark was now stroking his arm.



There was a silence, and regret in the air.
What's wrong?' Kimball asked.
'Peace,' Titoko sighed.
I thought you were for it.'
War has one thing to be said in its favour.'
I must have missed it,' Kimball said.
'It frees men from lust.'
'It frees them a little from living too,' Kimball pointed out.

[Amarjeet Singh · Rating 5 out of 5]

While studying the New Zealand Land Wars, I came across Shadbolt's The New Zealand Wars trilogy. "What a stroke of luck" younger me thought. After all, how best to break the monotony of student life while salvaging my conscience than through a related piece of historic fiction?

Although not a reputed connoisseur of New Zealand fiction, I was nonetheless enthralled by Shadbolt's amalgamation of the factual and fictional to present a vivid portrayal of two divided peoples at war with each other and among themselves set against the backdrop of the island-nation's early sanguine history.

Who can forget the innocent but bumbling Hamiora befriended by the cynical yet honest erstwhile military officer George Fairweather who fights to prevent him from becoming a victim of miscarried justice?

Or, the American expatriate soldier turned rebel Kimbell Bent attempting to broach both the worlds of the pristine Maori and the avaricious British?

And how can we forego Ferdinand Wildblood with his literary doppelganger of Henry Youngman fleeing accusations of plagiarism in England but only to end up in a war for souls in bloody New Zealand?

Shadbolt's acumen is on full display in this trilogy. A marvelous work of infinite magnitude.