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
Shrouded in cloud at the bottom of the world, this was the land that time forgot: the last sizeable piece of undiscovered land on Earth. Two hundred million years after breaking away from the vast southern continent of Gondwana, Man had yet to leave his footprints on this prehistoric place.
The land in question is New Zealand and the piece you are reading is the blurb for my historical adventure New Zealand: A Novel.
Mythology would have it the land was fished up out of the ocean. In fact, earthquakes and volcanic activity forced it to literally erupt from the seabed. This violent birth left it with a majestic ruggedness that would always reflect its former turbulence. The legacy of those fiery beginnings includes still-active volcanoes amidst the mountain chains that dissect the land.
Over time, its features softened. Scenes of beauty emerged out of the mists. There was a haunting stillness about the land. It was a place of mystery – of magical forests and sparkling lakes and rivers.
And the sea surrounded it – like some huge tidal moat.
Its isolation ensured it wouldn’t be until well into the First Millennium AD that Man would step foot on these shores. The brown-skinned people who settled here would call their new home Aotearoa – land of the long, white cloud. Not until its rediscovery centuries later by European explorers would the land receive the name by which it is known today…
Mō ngā pukapuka i Aotearoa, kua whaowhia ki te kete kotahi.
Kete gathers reviews and news about books, authors, events and awards in Aotearoa New Zealand. Kete forages weekly selecting books for you.
There’s a site I recommend to discerning readers that is dedicated solely to the promotion of quality Aotearoa New Zealand books. Kete Books, an initiative of the Coalition for Books, publishes reviews and news about books, authors, literary events and awards in New Zealand.Here’s the link to Kete’s site. It’s worth a visit… https://www.ketebooks.co.nz/en
Every week, Kete Books announces the bestselling New Zealand books.Here’s this week’s Top 10 bestselling adult fiction books:
-The Secrets of Maiden’s Cove – by Erin Palmisano
-Delirious – by Damien Wilkins
-Kāwai: Tree of Nourishment – by Monty Soutar
-The Bookshop Detectives: Dead Girl Gone – by Gareth and Louise Ward
-Kāwai: For Such a Time As This – by Monty Soutar
-Kataraina – by Becky Manawatu
-The Songbirds of Florence – by Olivia Spooner
-Star Gazers – by Duncan Sarkies
-You Left Your Heart – by Johanna Aitchison
-Auē – by Becky Manawatu
The Coalition for Books, the inspiration behind Kete Books, is a collaborative organisation that works to raise the profile of NZ books and authors; it develops programmes and initiatives that serve authors, publishers, booksellers, festivals, readers, and organisations that make up the country’s literary eco-system. Its site is worth a visit… https://coalitionforbooks.nz/
This new release book is available from Waterstones UK & Europe bookstores, Mighty Ape NZ and from Amazon. It’s also stocked or available on order at public libraries.
The following excerpt from the historical adventure New Zealand: A Novel describes a Maori raid on an East Coast pa (fortified village) and reveals the victors’ lust for the flesh of their enemies. It was the age of cannibalism…
Excerpt begins:
The Te Arawa flotilla’s appearance in the bay caused considerable panic on shore. Armed warriors took up defensive positions while others prepared to launch wakas [canoes] to intercept the enemy’s flotilla. They evidently had second thoughts when they saw the size of the fleet, retreating instead behind their fortifications to await the invaders’ arrival, which could now be measured in heartbeats.
As the leading waka caught a wave and surfed the last forty yards to the beach, Apera studied the pa’s defences. He was pleased to note the stockade was in a state of disrepair, and there was no sign of the trenches, lookout towers or other defences that were a hallmark of bigger, well-defended pas like the Te Arawa’s own one at Rotorua and their allies’ pa at Maketu.
The Te Arawa raiders were among the very first outsiders to have visited Tokomaru Bay in such numbers, so remote was it, and the villagers believed their isolation kept them safely removed from the conflicts that raged elsewhere – until today. The conflict that followed was as bloody as it was brief; resistance was weak and short-lived because the villagers had little experience of war.
Apera’s raiders killed almost every villager, sparing only the rangatira Rawiri, his two wives, thirty warriors and twenty-five nubile wahines. The warriors, all big men, were considered suitable candidates for slavery while the wahines would be used by the raiders for pleasure before being enslaved or killed.
As darkness fell, flames lit up the night sky after the raiders set fire to the whares [huts] and other structures. It wasn’t long before Rawiri’s whare was the only one left standing. Warriors wandered amongst the fallen, dispatching survivors with a savage thrust of a spear or blow from a club. The larger, meatier corpses – males and females – were stacked in a pile on the marae, a communal meeting place in the middle of the pa. These would be cooked, and the flesh and organs of many would be eaten before the night was over. Uneaten flesh would be cut into strips then smoked, packed and saved for eating in the days and weeks ahead.
The cries of the wounded faded. The only sounds were the crackling of flames and the triumphant shouts of the victorious Te Arawa warriors. Those same warriors then performed an impromptu haka to celebrate their triumph. Chanting, gyrating, leaping and stamping the ground in unison, the war dance was awesome, gut-wrenching and terrifying all at the same time. Between chants, the participants poked out their tongues, a chilling reminder that those vanquished would be eaten. Warriors needed no such reminding for all were aware, regardless of which iwi they belonged to, that that was the likely fate of those killed or enslaved. Maoris believed they inherited their enemies’ strength when they ate them.
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The print versions of New Zealand: A Novel are available via Waterstones UK & Europe bookstores, Mighty Ape NZ and Amazon.Global review rating: 4.7 out of 5 stars.
Confirmed and unconfirmed reports the world’s superpowers are constructing or enlarging a variety of underground bases to serve various nefarious purposes have sparked renewed interest in Book 7 in our contentious Underground Knowledge Series.
Titled UNDERGROUND BASES: Subterranean Military Facilities and the Cities Beneath Our Feet, it asks what the superpowers get up to in their secret underground bunkers, and it examines confirmed and rumored underground facilities, and undersea facilities, in the US, China, Mexico, Australia and elsewhere.
Reports dating back to before (and during) the COVID plandemic that members of America’s so-called Global Elite were investing in the construction of underground bunkers in New Zealand in case of a nuclear holocaust saw a healthy spike in sales of this book.
Now we are experiencing the same reader interest in the wake of renewed reports of underground activity. These reports include:
Construction in China of a massive underground military command complex dubbed “Beijing Military City” near the Chinese capital. Once completed, it’s expected to be the world’s largest military command center and is designed to protect personnel against bombardment in the event of conflict.
The unveiling of a new underground missile facility along Iran’s southern coastline. Apparently, this so-called “Missile City” houses a range of missile systems and is part of Iran’s strategy to strengthen its military assets amid escalating tensions with the U.S. and its allies. This facility stores hundreds of cruise missiles capable of countering electronic warfare from enemy destroyers, and it features winding underground tunnels housing missile launchers.
In our book we speculate that the covert underground infrastructure around the world may be far bigger than anyone has previously supposed and is likely used for the development of suppressed technologies. Our sources include declassified files, university reports, WikiLeaks’ documents and interviews with ex-military personnel turned whistleblowers who claim to have worked in “cities below ground”.
In the book’s blurb we state:
“The exposé covers everything from: the US Department of Defence’s verified evacuation areas beneath the White House and the Pentagon as well as their acknowledged sites at Mount Weather and Cheyenne Mountain; underground facilities around the world including Russia’s sprawling Mezhgorye complex and Australia’s CIA-managed Pine Gap; the long-forgotten newspaper headlines which reported that Adolf Hitler and senior SS officers may have built a Nazi colony beneath Antarctica after WW2.”
When Nicholas Young was appointed Surgeon’s Boy aboard Captain Cook’s bark Endeavour in 1768 homosexuality and drunkenness below deck were among the surprises in store for him – as the following excerpt from the new release historical adventure New Zealand: A Novel shows…
The Endeavour’s surgery was one of the busiest facilities aboard ship. As surgeon’s boy, Nicholas’s shifts involved twelve-hour days every day as well as being on call to assist in the event of an emergency. The seventeen-year-old soon discovered emergencies aboard sailing ships of the day were the rule rather than the exception.
Terrifying mid-Atlantic storms had resulted in a rash of injuries, some serious, and two more lives had been lost before they’d even reached the sanctuary of Rio de Janeiro. Both unfortunates had been swept overboard in mountainous seas. Since then another had died after falling from the rigging.
Many of the mishaps could be attributed to drunkenness. So liberal were the Royal Navy’s rum rations, which were often supplemented illegally through theft and bribery, that many crew members and some officers were constantly drunk.
Nicholas had quickly discovered that alcohol and sailing were not a good mix. He was constantly helping to patch up injured seamen who had over-indulged. Other injuries resulted from fighting, which was all too often another side-effect of excessive drinking.
Brawling, drunkenness and illicit procurement of liquor were punishable by flogging. More than a dozen floggings had been administered so far on the voyage, but not even the cat-of-nine-tails was enough to deter the worst offenders. These were rough men who worked hard and played hard, and Nicholas soon learned he’d entered a world where he had to stand up for himself or risk being bullied.
He learned that homosexuality was another fact of life at sea where men were literally thrown together in the cramped quarters below deck. As the distance separating them from wives and loved-ones lengthened, bunk or hammock-sharing became quite common, and not only below deck. This problem – for that’s how the navy viewed homosexuality – was different to other problems encountered on board in that the top brass scarcely acknowledged it existed. Officially, the hierarchy took a dim view of buggery, as they called it. The offence was punishable by death – and not just in the navy: it was a capital crime in civilian life, too. Unofficially, the navy’s top brass turned a blind eye provided offenders were discreet.
Nicholas often marvelled at how easily happily married family men could turn to other men for sexual relief then just as easily return to their wives’ loving arms on returning to their home port.
Several crew members had made unwanted advances to Nicholas early on in the voyage. He’d quickly discouraged them. On the last occasion – to signal loud and clear what his preferences were – he made an example of the drunken oaf who tried to grope him in front of others in the mess. Evading the man’s clumsy advances, he promptly kicked him in the testicles. While his victim lay temporarily paralyzed on the floor, Nicholas proceeded to force-feed him pickled cabbage and other legumes from the man’s plate until his open mouth could accommodate no more of his unfinished dinner. All this to the wild cheering of some thirty admiring onlookers.
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New Zealand: A Novel is available via Waterstones UK & Europe bookstores & via Mighty Ape NZ & public libraries. Its Amazon link is:
Fans of historical romance novels – Georgian romance in particular – are in for a treat following the announcement that accomplished American author Kathleen Buckley’s latest Georgian romance novel will be released in March.
Titled A Murder of Convenience, it will be published on March 24, but the Kindle version can be pre-ordered via Amazon now for delivery on that date.
The story:
Ellen Cuthbert’s husband, Randolph, is now the Earl of Keswick’s heir. Their marriage is a sham, and Randolph’s mistress, Lydia, is present at the house party. When she is found murdered in a locked room, all the evidence seems to point to Ellen. And how could the murderer have escaped the locked room except by witchcraft?
Sir Hugh accompanies his cousin, a magistrate, to the scene of the murder. They investigate, appalled to find their childhood friend Ellen appears to be the chief suspect. Hugh’s lack of prospects years ago prevented their marriage. Now if he cannot find the real murderer, there may be only one final service he can perform for Ellen to spare her a slow death at the end of the hangman’s rope.
She has loved writing ever since she learned to read. After a career which included light bookkeeping, working as a paralegal, and a stint as a security officer, she began to write as a second career, rather than as a hobby. Her first historical romance was penned (well, word processed) after re-reading Georgette Heyer’s Georgian/Regency romances and realizing that Ms. Heyer would never be able to write another, having died some forty years earlier.
Buckley’s earlier Georgian romance novels include: An Unsuitable Duchess, Most Secret, Captain Easterday’s Bargain, A Masked Earl, A Duke’s Daughter, Portia and the Merchant of London, A Westminster Wedding, and A Peculiar Enchantment.
Kathleen Buckley…ever the romantic.
Buckley’s bio includes the following warning: “No bodices are ripped in her romances, which might be described as “powder & patch & peril” rather than Jane Austen drawing room. They contain no explicit sex but do contain the occasional den of vice and mild bad language, as the situations in which her characters find themselves sometimes call for an oath a little stronger than “Zounds!”
“Her novel Captain Easterday’s Bargain was an Oklahoma Romance Writers of America IDA 2019 finalist, Historical Fiction category; and Most Secret was an Oklahoma Romance Writers of America IDA 2018 finalist, Historical Fiction category, and a 2019 Next Generation Indie Book Awards finalist, Romance category.”
For our review of A Murder of Convenience…watch this space!
It is generally agreed the Polynesian explorer Kupe discovered New Zealand between 750 AD and 950 AD, and the so-called Great Fleet of seven canoes landed around 1350 AD. Those canoes each had landing points and arrival dates that did not suit my story, hence my deviation from the popular historical account in my new release, historical adventure New Zealand: A Novel.
*** To clarify, in the following excerpt from the novel, the great Hawaikan voyaging canoes I named Ronui and Tautira never existed:
The morning after the big feast in Hotu’s village, Ronui led Tautira toward the narrow gap in the reef that separated them from the open sea. Around eighty people – passengers and crew – occupied almost every bit of available space on the decks of each canoe.
First places aboard the craft had been allocated to the rangatiras and their extended families. These included Hotu’s wives and their young children aboard Ronui, and Ra’s wives and even younger children aboard Tautira. Some of the children were only babies.
The rangatiras’ extended families accounted for about twenty people on each vessel. Other places had gone to a cross-section of villagers with special skills. High on the list were navigators, sailors, fishermen and boat-builders. Most were fighting men as well. Last but not least were their womenfolk. In some cases children had had to stay behind. They’d be looked after by grandparents and other close relatives.
Hotu hadn’t even considered taking his own ageing parents, so frail were they. Besides, they considered themselves too much a permanent part of Hawaiki to consider leaving. Saying goodbye to them proved an unbearable sadness for the rangatira.
Many of those departing wailed mournfully as they sailed away from their beautiful island. Men chanted to their island gods while their wahines cried out despairingly. Oblivious to their sadness, naked children scampered over the decks. Behind them, Hawaiki’s palm trees swayed in the balmy breeze and the jungle-covered peaks were framed by a tropical blue sky.
On the black sand beach, villagers looked on forlornly as their loved ones sailed away even though many of them were hoping to depart soon aboard the other seven canoes. Those vessels were now within ten days of completion.
Crewmembers aboard the departing craft were too busy to look back. They worked frantically adjusting the triangular sails in readiness for the open sea beyond the reef. The cries of those ashore faded amidst the constant boom of waves crashing on the reef. Ronui led Tautira through the small gap. In the space of a few heartbeats, they were into the open sea.
In the weeks ahead, the crews of the two craft would strive to maintain this formation through torrential rain and high winds and every other challenge the sea could throw at them.
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Spring gave way to summer and the voyagers found themselves at the point of no return – the point reached in every ocean voyage where to continue and not find land meant certain death. Hotu and Ra instinctively knew they had reached that point.
It had been four weeks since they’d set sail for Kupe’s land aboard Ronui and Tautira. In that time, the giant craft had been battered by almost everything except a tidal wave or full-blown cyclone. Still they’d never been more than fifty yards apart, secured to each other by a length of platted twine fashioned from strong jungle vines. Without it they would have been separated very early on in the voyage.
The canoes were barely recognisable as the proud craft they’d once been, such was the terrible hammering they’d received from the elements. Their crews and passengers looked even more pathetic. They were in the early stages of starvation; the signs of malnutrition could already be seen in the children. All on board were cold, wet and tired, and many had developed hacking coughs. The coughing sickness they called it.
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New Zealand: A Novel is available via Amazon as a hardcover, paperback and Kindle ebook.
A spike in the sale of underground bunkers could explain the spike in sales of Underground Bases, book 7 in The Underground Knowledge Series by James & Lance Morcan.
Global security leaders are warning nuclear threats are growing as weapons spending surged to $91.4 billion last year. At the same time, private bunker sales are on the rise globally, from small metal boxes to crawl inside of, to extravagant underground mansions.
So says Associated Press writer Martha Mendoza in an article published by AP on December 18.
Mendoza writes: “Critics warn these bunkers create a false perception that a nuclear war is survivable. They argue that people planning to live through an atomic blast aren’t focusing on the real and current dangers posed by nuclear threats, and the critical need to stop the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
“Meanwhile, government disaster experts say bunkers aren’t necessary. A Federal Emergency Management Agency 100-page guide on responding to a nuclear detonation focuses on having the public get inside and stay inside, ideally in a basement and away from outside walls for at least a day. Those existing spaces can provide protection from radioactive fallout, says FEMA.
“But increasingly, buyers say bunkers offer a sense of security. The market for U.S. bomb and fallout shelters is forecast to grow from $137 million last year to $175 million by 2030, according to a market research report from BlueWeave Consulting. The report says major growth factors include “the rising threat of nuclear or terrorist attacks or civil unrest.”
Mendoza reports that COVID lockdowns, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war have driven sales.
None of this surprises my co-writer and I. The blurb for our contentious book ‘Underground Bases’ reads as follows:
“(This book) details confirmed and rumored underground facilities in the United States and around the world. Containing rare photographic evidence throughout as well as little-known quotes from key government figures, it makes a compelling case for there being an enormous hidden world under the Earth’s surface.
“The Morcans speculate that the covert underground infrastructure may be far bigger than anyone has previously supposed and is likely used for the development of suppressed technologies. Their sources include declassified files, university reports, WikiLeaks’ documents and interviews with ex-military personnel turned whistleblowers who claim to have worked in ‘cities below ground.’”
UNDERGROUND BASES: Subterranean Military Facilities and the Cities Beneath Our Feet is available via Amazon.
Romper.com invites you to check out its “Addictive Book Trilogies with a Cult Following to Dive into STAT.”Our bestseller international thriller series The Orphan Trilogy (The Ninth Orphan, The Orphan Factory, The Orphan Uprising) – by James & Lance Morcan – comes in at #5 on the list! James’s name comes first because the trilogy was his brainchild.
The list follows below.
Addictive Book Trilogies list:
#1 The Hunger Games – by Suzanne Collins #2 The Millennium Trilogy – by Stieg Larsson #3 Infernal Devices Trilogy – by Cassandra Clare #4 Graceling Realm Series – by Kristin Cashore #5 The Orphan Trilogy – by James and Lance Morcan #6 The King Trilogy – by Stephen Douglass #7 His Dark Materials – by Philip Pullman #8 The Bourne Trilogy – by Robert Ludlum #9 Trilogy Of The Chosen – by J.M. LeDuc #10 The Falsifiers – by Antoine Bello #11 Bloodlines Trilogy – by Glen Duncan #12 The Beyond Trilogy – by Janet Morris #13 The Bronze Horseman Trilogy – by Paullina Simons #14 African Trilogy – by Chinua Achebe #15 The Ibis Trilogy – by Amitav Ghosh
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Romper.com’s summary of The Orphan Trilogy follows:
“James and Lance Morcan’s Orphan Trilogy is a fast-paced international conspiracy series that follows an orphan named Nine. He is one of twenty-three genetically superior orphans being raised and groomed by Chicago’s Pedemont Project to start a new world order. The series follows Nine as he comes of age within the orphanage, then escapes and goes on the run across America and overseas, all the while using espionage skills from his upbringing to try to outrun his former father-figure. Talk about suspense from the get-go!”
Morcan Books & Films 