Boiling Point

by Tom Merritt, Merritt, Tom

When the US goes broke, the states break loose and people across the country get caught in the chaos. The Lakota rise up in the north and Texas breaks free in the south. Meanwhile, Steve just wants to get back to Illinois with his love life intact. Mack, an Ozark militia member doesn't want his friend to sign up but knows they can't succeed without him. And a Texas Congressman struggles with his conscience and a manipulative Governor. Can the country stay together? Can the people?

Genres: Fiction, Mystery

194 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 14, 2007

About the author

Tom Merritt is a technology journalist and broadcaster. Tom has previously worked at TechTV, CNET and TWiT. He currently hosts the Sword and Laser book club podcast, Daily Tech News Show, Current Geek and Cordkillers among others.

photo by Andrew Mager

Reviews

[Tom Merritt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, I wrote it, so I'm certainly biased. I like the overriding concept a lot. The breakup of the Soviet Union still fascinated me when I began writing it in 1993. The idea of what would happen if the US suffered a similar fate, I still find very compelling.

I broke the story up into several storylines all told from a different character's point of view. This can be confusing sometimes and I could probably do a better job differentiating the voices, but overall, I liked the way it gave you different windows on the crises.

Some weird parallels have occurred since I first wrote it. I referenced a disaster in New Orleans long before Katrina happened. And now most recently the Lakota have begun a serious push for independence.

So if you're into speculative future type political fiction, I think you;ll get a kick out of it.

[Hugo Saraiva · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book by Tom Merritt... puts to imagine of what would happen or could happen if the United States of America would become too in debt and ended up calling Marshal law. Then groups and states throughout what we currently know as the USA formed new countries and wars broke out throughout the land. The book was put in the prospective of a number of civilians, army men, but over all people. I listened to the podcast audio version that Tom read. The reading kind of started out well, meh, but I kept listening and the reading became better.

Thanks Tom! Write another book :)

[Jami · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed it. The Fiance, who isn't always such a fan of the audio format as I am, was also roped in by this one. The Fiance, from SoCal, tends to agree with Tom Merritt that the U.S. would be in some trouble if it split up. Me, from the Northwest, I tend to harbor happy visions of Ecotopia. We'd be pretty well buffered from Texas up here.

Available free in mp3 format here:
http://www.archive.org/search.php?que...

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

The fragmented states of America was an intriguing premise and is well supported by the contrast between that broad political setting and its development through the lives of various individuals. The main problem I had reading it was following who was who in the 1st person voice. I think if I had more time to get to know the characters and what made them unique before things started to break up it might have been easier to follow.

[Kate O'Hanlon · Rating 4 out of 5]

The most impressive aspect of Boiling Point is how plausibly Merritt dramatises the breakup of the USA, there was very little that I felt I could call bullshit (though that's probably in part because of my European prejudice that all Americans are just a little crazy).
A better grasp of US geography would have made some of the book a little easier to follow and some better female characters would have been nice but all in all it was a great read.

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

An fun, odd, but enjoyable read. I really dug the the take on the book speculating on the breakdown of the United States. I also really enjoyed most of the characters involved. I think this book felt a bit rushed as some of the leaps were a bit jarring. This could really benefit in being expanded to a trilogy, as well as one more round of proofreading. Overall though it was the most fun Ive had on a book all year.

[Doug · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even though it was written in the nineties, the author has a creepy ability to predict the future. He seems to have special, if somewhat occultish, powers. Overall, a very good read.

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this - so scary and real despite how long it has been around.

[Memoree · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is self published so it is filled with errors that need to be overlooked. More importantly, it just isn't very good. I actually read it because I have a friend who grew up with the guy who wrote this book. I figured it would be kind of fun. While it was fun to see my friend's name in print, that was the only fun I got out of this book. It's not really well written and there is too much going on in the story that can't be explained well by the chosen format so the author tells a large portion of events through news broadcasts, which get tedious. Plus, while it was an interesting choice to have the chapters be a series of first person renderings, even though they are all about different people, you don't end up really getting to know any of the characters because of it.

[Thompson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Looking Forward to this one

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought it to support Tom. I finished it because I enjoyed it.

[Blory Blummers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved the concept and it was a fun read