Hi
Welcome to Morcan Books & Films, the blog devoted to providing a unique perspective and intelligent commentary on books and films. It includes commentary on our own books and films – i.e. novels and screenplays co-written by the Morcans, and feature films produced by, or in development with, Morcan Motion Pictures.
Lance & James
My historical adventure New Zealand: A Novel is available now as an Amazon audiobook. To listen to the novel’s prologue, click on “Virtual voice sample” in the panel below the cover image accessed via the following link… https://www.amazon.com/Audible-New-Zealand-A-Novel/dp/B0FDKR59JJ/
The prologue, set around 1300 AD, shows the destruction wreaked upon Hawaikans in the Pacific Island nation of Hawaiki after being attacked by enemies from a neighbouring island. Plagued by violence, crop failures and low fish stocks, they prepare to flee across the ocean to a land far to the south. A land that will one day be called Aotearoa New Zealand; a land that will be home to their warlike descendants who will call themselves Maori, and to whites who the indigenous people will refer to as Pakeha.
Other formats for New Zealand: A Novel include paperback and hardcover as well as Kindle ebook. The print versions are available via Harvard Book Store, Waterstones UK & Europe bookstores, Barnes & Noble, Amazon and via public libraries.
Our bestselling historical adventure novel INTO THE AMERICAS is available now as an Amazon audiobook. To listen to the novel’s prologue, click on the “Virtual voice sample” in the panel below the cover image accessed via the following link… https://www.amazon.com/ITEM_NAME/dp/B0FDKY28ZC/
So far, 19 of our books – fiction and nonfiction / co-authored and solo-authored – have been uploaded to Amazon’s Audiobook with more to come.
INTO THE AMERICAS (A novel based on a true story) is a gritty, real-life adventure based on one of history’s greatest survival stories. It was inspired by the diary entries of young English blacksmith John Jewitt during his time aboard the brigantine The Boston and also during his sojourn as a captive of the First Nations people at Nootka Sound, on North America’s western seaboard, from 1802 to 1805.
This novel has 925 global ratings and a 4.4 out of 5-star rating on Amazon.
According to Amazon’s A.I. summary: “Customers find this book an enjoyable and captivating read based on historical facts, with well-developed characters and a fast-paced narrative that draws readers into the excitement. The writing style receives positive feedback, and customers appreciate the historical notes that add clarity to the story.”
Our aviation thriller-romance novel THE HEATHROW AFFAIR, co-authored by Lance & James Morcan, is now available as an audiobook, marking the first of our novels to be adapted from a Kindle ebook to an audiobook courtesy of Amazon’s Audible initiative for authors. (Listening length 2hrs 40mins).
Note you can click on the “Virtual voice sample” panel to listen to the opening chapter.
THE HEATHROW AFFAIR is about John Woods, a young airline engineering apprentice who seems to have it all – a career he loves and the girl of his dreams. But all is not what it seems in this aviation love triangle…
John’s life is turned upside down when his beloved Sandra announces she’s leaving him for a dashing pilot employed by the same international airline John works for. When John is blamed for a mid-air incident that has catastrophic consequences for one of the airline’s aircraft, he and Sandra are reunited in a way neither could ever have imagined.
Ranked Amazon reviewer Grady Harp says: “The novel sets flight on an immensely entertaining romance adventure!”
Amazon reviews states” “The story is original, moves at a fast pace with romance, psychologically charged and intense moments…I was hooked from the first page.”
Ranked Amazon Australia reviewer Todd Simpson writes: “The thing I like the most is the story took a turn that I wasn’t expecting, and it certainly hit me between the eyes!!”
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We are adapting all our books (fiction and nonfiction) to audiobooks and will notify our followers accordingly. Watch this space!
For those who prefer the printed word, the paperback version of THE HEATHROW AFFAIR is available from Harvard Book Store, Waterstones UK & Europe bookstores, Barnes & Noble, Amazon and via public libraries.
It’s with pleasure we, my co-writer James Morcan and I, can announce that our books – fiction and nonfiction – are available now at Massachusetts’ Harvard Book Store (pictured) in Cambridge, MA. They can be viewed at https://www.harvard.com/search/site/Lance%20Morcan
Harvard Book Store is a unique and special place to shop—a locally owned, independently run Cambridge landmark since 1932. As this iconic store’s own website states: “Our bookstore is known for an extraordinary selection and thoughtful curation of new, used, and remaindered books; an award-winning author event series; wildly popular warehouse sales; and a history of innovation.”
Among our bestselling nonfiction books available at Harvard Book Store are: Debunking Holocaust Denial Theories, Vaccine Science Revisited, The Catcher in the Rye Enigma and Genius Intelligence.
Among our novels available at the store are the critically acclaimed Into the Americas, White Spirit, Silent Fear and The Ninth Orphan. My solo-authored new release historical adventure New Zealand: A Novel is also available.
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Morcan books (co-authored and solo-authored) are also available via Waterstones UK & Europe bookstores, Barnes & Noble, Amazon and via public libraries.
The word “genius” is bandied about a lot these days, the term being eagerly applied to all sorts of people for all sorts of reasons. I’m in no doubt my definition of “genius” differs to yours and, indeed, to the definition held by many. This is not necessarily a sign we are right or wrong. Rather, it’s a reflection, perhaps, of the perception the modern world has of genius.
We address this in a passage titled Connecting the dots in GENIUS INTELLIGENCE: Secret Techniques and Technologies to Increase IQ – book one in our Underground Knowledge Series. ( Available now at Harvard Book Store ).
In bygone eras the term “genius” was most used when describing brilliant artists like Leonardo da Vinci. Then, in the 20th Century, the term was more often reserved for academics like Albert Einstein. Now, in the 21st Century, it has assumed a broader meaning and is applied to individuals who have achieved extraordinary results in a wide variety of careers, pastimes and fields of endeavor that transcend academia.
Increasingly, we see references in the media and elsewhere to scientific genius or artistic genius or sporting genius, which supports this evolving definition of the word.
Certainly, dictionary definitions (of genius) allow for a broad interpretation. For example, common dictionary definitions include “exceptional intellectual or creative power or other natural ability” and “an exceptionally intelligent person or one with exceptional skill in a particular area of activity.”
A cursory look at our Thesaurus offers mastermind, prodigy, brain, intellect, virtuoso and even whiz kid as alternatives to the word genius.
For what it’s worth, our definition of genius is: Someone who demonstrates rare intellect, who successfully connects dots between seemingly unconnected things and who sees what others don’t to achieve revolutionary outcomes and extraordinary results.
We remind readers what German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer said about genius: “Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see.”
It’s obvious to us that little-known accelerated learning techniques do exist in one form or another – techniques (and technologies) capable of increasing IQ. It should also be obvious that geniuses aren’t usually born geniuses, or, to put it another way, they aren’t necessarily born geniuses. Having studied the lives of numerous geniuses, we were surprised to discover most utilized – or, from a young age, were exposed to – various brain activation methods on their respective journeys to becoming acknowledged masters of their fields.
GENIUS INTELLIGENCE: Secret Techniques and Technologies to Increase IQ (below) is available via Harvard Book Store (above) at https://www.harvard.com/book/9780473318499
Genius Intelligence also available via Waterstones UK & Europe, Barnes & Noble, Inc. bookstores, Amazon Kindle (and paperback) and via public libraries.
Why do vaccine manufacturers persist in adding Formaldehyde (FA) or Formalin (the liquid form of formaldehyde) to vaccines when many scientists have expressed concern about injecting embalming fluid into the bodies of infants?
My co-author and I pose this question in a chapter titled Formaldehyde – The demolition crew in our book VACCINE SCIENCE REVISITED: Are Childhood Immunizations as Safe as Claimed?
In certain vaccines, formaldehyde is used to “inactivate viruses and to detoxify bacterial toxins.” However, we learned that in the making of these vaccines it’s impossible to extract all the toxins. There will always be some residual toxins left in the vaccine. When it comes to formaldehyde, this can be 0.02% FA or less.
As with other chemicals, the various forms should not be confused. We mentioned that formaldehyde becomes formalin when in liquid. To be more specific, when methyl alcohol is added to formaldehyde, it becomes formalin. A solution that’s 10% formalin, is actually 3.7-4% formaldehyde.
In researching vaccine safety generally, we struggle to understand how so many scientific studies out there can be studying the exact same thing, yet their conclusions completely contradict each other. Formaldehyde studies are no exception. If each study can be replicated by a third party in the laboratory, how can the results vary so greatly?
What’s not in dispute is that our bodies produce formaldehyde naturally. This makes it difficult to determine how safe formaldehyde in vaccines really is. Formaldehyde can damage our cells, but at the same time it can defend the cells against damage. In the latter case, our body breaks the formaldehyde down into smaller pieces. These smaller pieces are no longer formaldehyde, but are now formate. The cell uses formate to create more DNA.
Some health professionals are concerned about accumulation of formaldehyde in the body. For example, Sherri Tenpenny, Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (DO), who has great insight into the field of natural health, argues that by the time a child is five, they have received 1.795 mg formaldehyde.
Dr. Tenpenny says, “Through sloppy and negligent math, lawmakers and manufacturers fail to throw up a red flag regarding the large amount of formaldehyde injected into young bodies with developing brains, neurological systems and organs.”
We found a study that measured accumulated formaldehyde in the brain. It showed that the more it accumulates, the less there will be “cognitive abilities during human aging”. The more severe the dementia in Alzheimer’s disease patients, the higher the formaldehyde accumulation.
The list of concerns goes on. We list some of them for our readers. All claims, links and references to scientific and medical papers, official statements and news reports are tabled at the end of each chapter.
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Vaccine Science Revisited is available via Barnes & Noble bookstores, public libraries and via Amazon. It continues to be one of the bestselling books our contentious Underground Knowledge Series.
As a student (albeit unqualified) of ancient Rome and an avid reader of Ben Cane, Conn Iggulden and other great historical fiction novelists, I was intrigued to learn there were gladiatrices, or female gladiators, in Rome. And there’s evidence to suggest they were honored as highly as their male counterparts.
Women of all classes participated in spectacles hosted by emperors Nero, Titus and Domitian, and history suggests many gladiatrices were ‘high born’ women of means. Affluent women could afford the training and had leisure time to work out. Professional gladiator troupe managers encouraged these women, offering money and glamour. Popular gladiators were revered as sex symbols and feted by Roman citizens, and no doubt it was the same for gladiatrices.
Not only did gladiatrices fight each other, they also fought wild animals, and sometimes even dwarfs for entertainment in public games.
Roman historians described women fighting each other at after-dinner acts in Rome and especially in the thriving city of Pompeii. Apparently, it wasn’t without controversy, and the participation of gladiatrices was often criticized by Romans of the day. Even so, it wasn’t until 200 A.D. that all female gladiatorial combat was banned.
Upon learning this, I was inspired to write a short story titled A Gladiator’s Love. In this action-romance tale, dashing Greek gladiator Leonidas promises his true love he’ll buy her freedom if he wins his own in the Colosseum. His beloved is Fatuma, an Ethiopian beauty who is a gladiatrice.
-Lance Morcan (Author)
A Gladiator’s Love is available via Amazon as a Kindle ebook… https://lnkd.in/gjcb_x3g It’s also one of five short stories in my paperback titled 5 Short Story Gems.
There was a very interesting study published in PubMed in 2010 some 10 years after it was conducted into the CDC’s recommended childhood vaccine schedule we feel hasn’t gotten the recognition it deserves. More than two decades since the study was done, as far as we can tell, discussions about it and its results are almost non-existent.
My co-author James Morcan and I refer to this study in a chapter titled ‘Definitely maybe science’ in our book ‘VACCINE SCIENCE REVISITED: Are Childhood Immunizations as Safe as Claimed?’
The study randomly selected 16 infant rhesus monkeys and divided them into two groups. One group of 12 monkeys received the CDC’s then-recommended childhood vaccine schedule at the same rate American children would. The remaining four infant monkeys, which comprised the control group, received placebo (saline) vaccines according to the same schedule. (It would be interesting if they added a second control group using the placebos used in vaccine safety studies today. We are very curious to know how it would compare).
This was a longitudinal study lasting from 1994 to 1999 to follow the vaccine schedule in a proper timeline. The study found the vaccinated monkeys had a much “greater total brain volume” than the average healthy brain. They also observed that the amygdala in the vaccinated monkeys didn’t mature with time as it was supposed to. The amygdala, incidentally, plays an important role in social interactions.
Maybe it’s not so surprising they also observed that in the vaccinated monkeys the opioid antagonist diprenorphine (DPN) levels never lowered throughout the study. In the placebo group, the DPN levels decreased noticeably. One function of DPN is to block social interaction. What this means is the research showed that the social behavior of those monkeys that received the actual vaccines, where the DPN levels did not decrease, turned anti-social.
We found there was at least one more study undertaken to verify the association between DPN and social behavior. Performed in 1981, the authors of that study believe the release of opioids in the brain encourages social interactions. So, when the body fails to decrease the amount of the antagonist DPN, it not only blocks the opioids that encourage social interactions, but it blocks the desire to socially interact.
We were unable to find published studies that show a link between DPN and autism. However, we did look a little closer into DPN. Apparently, there are three different variations of opioid receptors: mu, µ; delta, δ; and kappa, κ. We are only interested in the kappa (κ1 and κ2) receptors. There are more kappa receptors in the brain than any other opioid receptor. Not surprisingly, you’ll find these receptors in the amygdala.
The paper states:
“The κ opioid receptors have been implicated in several clinical brain disorders, including drug abuse, epilepsy, Tourette’s syndrome, and Alzheimer’s disease.”
What DPN does is bind to the kappa receptors and that’s how it accumulates in the amygdala. So, it makes sense how DPN could cause problems when it doesn’t go away with time…
Rumors of foreign mercenaries being hired as deniable assets by the CIA to aid the persecuted were the motivation for our action-adventure novel The Dogon Initiative.
The rumors, incidentally, remain unproven, but one of us at least believes they could be more fact than rumor – despite the CIA’s, um, somewhat dubious reputation.
Book one in our series The Deniables, the storyline sees a group of foreign mercenaries hired as deniable assets by a newly formed humanitarian division of the CIA. They are tasked with saving Mali’s persecuted Dogon people from genocide. The operation must be carried out in stealth while journeying across some of West Africa’s most hostile terrain.
As if all that’s not enough, they are also instructed to help solve an ancient astronomical mystery linked to the pyramids of Egypt.
The novel highlights some of the many myths and theories surrounding the fascinating Dogon people. In particular, their unexplained knowledge of the invisible-to-the-eye Sirius B white dwarf star, the rings of Saturn and other heavenly bodies, and their rumored ancestral relationship to ancient Egyptians.
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The Dogon Initiative is available via Amazon.
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Our other co-authored adventure novels by Lance & James Morcan include:
The poverty in South Sudan is too awful to behold as its people try to cope with escalating violence and a deepening humanitarian crisis. This despite the fact that the world’s youngest nation possesses an enviable variety of natural resources, including gold, diamonds, silver, various ores, water resources, luxury timber, fertile land, and diverse wildlife. Not to mention oil, its major export.
South Sudan’s story is essentially the story of Africa, which John Perkins highlights in his bestselling (must-read) book Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, and which we highlight in our book Bankrupting the Third World: How the Global Elite Drown Poor Nations in a Sea of Debt.
John Perkins…coined economic hitmen.
In our lesser-known book, we regrettably inform readers that the economic hit men popularized in Perkins’ 2004 bestseller are still alive and well – in Africa in particular but elsewhere as well.
Just look at the humanitarian crisis in the DRC (Congo), which possesses a vast array of natural resources, including significant mineral deposits of copper, cobalt, coltan, and diamonds, as well as substantial hydroelectric potential, fertile land, and diverse wildlife within the world’s second-largest rainforest.
We identify the cause of Africa’s woes: corrupt politicians, greedy corporates (a la the economic hitmen) and questionable aid packages provided by the likes of the World Bank, the IMF and USAID. Packages some suggest are scams designed to subjugate Third World countries.
Bankrupting the Third World is dedicated to the impoverished in forgotten places of the world. When we wrote it 21,000 people were dying from starvation every day. That’s one person every four seconds! We suspect the toll is even higher today.
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Bankrupting the Third World: How the Global Elite Drown Poor Nations in a Sea of Debt is available via Waterstones UK & Europe bookstores and public libraries and via Amazon…
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