Jerry Merritt

Wow, what a great read! I stumbled upon this book going thru Amazon profiles of readers reviews who had given positive reviews of a favorite book that I had also really liked. I have a hard time finding new books to read and have found that if I will pick an obscure favorite book of mine and then find others who had also given that same book a five star review and if among their reviews I see other positive reviews of books I've enjoyed, I can often find something new that I'll also enjoy. show more In this case I'd picked Fade by Kyle Mills, a somewhat obscure but favorite book of mine to use as a starting point. Needless to say, somebody who really liked Fade also liked and highly recommended this book.

The main characters for Measure of the Earth are two 12 year old boys growing up in the 1950s. I'm 60 years old but I had no trouble imagining myself in these boys trials, tribulations and adventures. There were times I was afraid to turn the pages. That is a very rare occurrence for me nowadays, but thats a real indicator that you've been sucked into the story. The author is so good at getting into the heads of his characters and describing their thoughts and whats going on that it just blew me away. Its one of those books I just couldn't put down and it was completely impossible to anticipate where the story was going but it was all so believable.

Its so hard finding something of this caliber that I often find myself going back to read an old favorite every couple of years (books like Tom Clancy Without Remorse, or Term Limits by Vince Flynn). This is a book that I'll doubtless add to that list of favorites to go back and read again and again.

Thanks to the author for such a fantastic read! show less

One of the most touching time travel yarns I’ve ever read. It centers on love, commitment, and persistence as defining human characteristics, things that can not only transform individuals, but even entire galactic civilizations spanning space and time.

Wow, what can I say but an enjoyable trip through time. I want to give it a 5 but I found the story was drawn out a little and did not leave me with a book hangover wanting more. Regardless of being drawn out with a few subplots, the story did not dwindle or lul. If the author chose to end the story at an earlier junction, I defiantly would have wanted more but he summed all of the subplots and answered any reader questions pretty good.

Overall I initially thought of Clifford Simak and felt show more it was very reminiscent of his storytelling, at times I even thought of Heinlein but Merritt didn't express any opinions about sex or religion so that was a good thing. I would say very much like Simak.

I will definitely seek out another one of his books to try and recommend this to the time travel group to read. show less

It seems like 50% of the book was written by someone else, like a child! A small part of the book is relatively engaging, the rest is childish and neither emotionally nor intellectually stimulating. The writing is rather poor and rough (lacks the ability to engage and is not seamless). Overall, it's not that bad, but it's not as good as some of the reviews and the ratings here want you to believe. 3/5, and I'm being generous here.