The Point: Book Review

John Dixon’s new novel The Point is a work of Superhero Fiction that has a just a dash of Military SF. As far as novels about superheroes go, its premise is pretty standard stuff for the genre. Our young heroine, Scarlett Winter (That name really does sound like it was taken straight out of a Marvel comic, doesn’t it?) is a delinquent teenager who is constantly rebelling against her strict, alcoholic, ex-military father. She’s just graduated from High School when she suddenly discovers that she has the ability to absorb energy, and channel it through her body. This talent is noticed by the Enigmatic Colonel Rhodes, who offers her a choice; go to jail or join The Point, a West Point academy for other “Post Humans” like her, where they will train to battle a growing threat caused by a group of post human terrorists. Scarlett reluctantly agrees, and is shepherded off to the Point.

The biggest problem with The Point is that it is an incredibly standard book. And what I mean by that is that it doesn’t do anything I haven’t seen a million times before. The characters are standard, the plot is standard, the setting is (mostly) standard. Scarlett is your typical rebellious teenager, and the Point is your standard top-secret military superhero Academy. The only thing that makes it unique is that it blends the scenery and traditions of West Point into it, but it’s still just barely enough to make The Point stand out from every other Superhero novel ever written. It does give it a slight Military SF vibe, but it’s completely overshadowed by the otherwise bland nature of the plot. The main villain, a post human named Jagger, doesn’t have much going for him either; his sole motivation is the fact that he’s got a God complex, and that he wants to watch the world burn because he had a rough childhood. There’s really nothing unique about that. He’s all ego and really nothing else. Compare this to the conflict between the X-men’s Professor X and Magneto; Magneto wants mutants to take over via violent revolution because he feels they won’t be accepted otherwise, while Professor X believes that mutants must remain hidden until humanity is ready to accept them. There’s a genuine, understandable, relatable conflict there. There’s no such ideological conflict between the Point’s two most comparable characters, Jagger and Colonel Rhodes. Jagger, as I’ve said, is a whiny teenager with a God complex, while Colonel Rhodes just wants to have an elite fighting force for the military. There’s no larger ideological struggle, just a couple of assholes.

Now, this lack of ideological conflict wouldn’t be a problem if it weren’t for the fact that Dixon has attempted to make the Point morally ambiguous. He does this by showcasing the brutal punishments some of the cadets are put through for failing in their exercises, as well as the painful experiments that they endure at the hands of the US government. He then furthers this gray area by pointing out that most of the cadets are essentially being forced to become weapons that the US military will employ however it sees fit. Now, that would have made for a compelling, intriguing story line — if Dixon had bothered to explore it. Instead, this fact only comes up once, very late in the book, and then never comes up again. The ending of the novel was also a very storybook moment: all of the bad morally ambiguous things are magically resolved and the bad guy is defeated, and we get lectured about the honor of those who train at West Point. The novel feels like it’s stuck between two directions; one wants to explore the morally gray area that comes with creating a fighting force of superhumans, and the other wants to talk about the honor and glory of West Point.

The novel does have a couple nice side-characters, like Scarlett’s best friend Lucy DeCraig, a fellow Post Human. But more often than not, Dixon seems to forget that those characters actually exist. For example, Scarlett spends a lot of the novel trying to reconcile with her estranged brother, Dan. The problem is that Dan appears in the novel for all of two minutes before disappearing, so we never get a sense of him as a character, and the rift between him and Scarlett is never adequately explored.

I will say this for Dixon, though; he manages to write some fairly compelling action sequences. I did very much enjoy reading how the Post humans employ their various superpowers, and the few battle scenes were delightful, gory reads. But they’re very few and far between.

In conclusion, The Point is a blend of the America Rising series and the X-Men that just can’t seem to get it right. Bland characters and a bland environment make for a bland novel, despite it’s supercharged action sequences. It attempts to weave a morally ambiguous narrative, only to fall flat on its face. While I don’t think that the Point is offensively bad, I still can’t bring myself to recommend it. When I finished it, I didn’t feel either happy or annoyed. I just felt disappointed. There was so much potential in this story that never manifested. Also, at $27.00, it’s outrageously overpriced. But if you are really into superhero novels, maybe you’ll get some enjoyment out of it. But otherwise, stay away.

2/5 stars