I originally bought this book for only one reason...it was written by Steve Englehart. So here is my review, "MY OPINION", check my other ratings to see if you like the same types of books as me before judging this book based on my review.

The book is about a popular DJ, named Max, who previously served in the Vietnam War. While struggling with memories from his past (war), his current (and prosperous) life is turned upside down when he discovers that wizards, shamans and magic are indeed real. Max is thrown into the middle of a "final showdown" between two of these wizards because he happens to possess an artifact the wizards/shamans are searching for. I won't say anymore in efforts to avoid spoiling the story for future readers.

I really liked the "idea" behind the story. I felt Mr. Englehart did a great job fitting things together to make the story interesting. I also felt his character development was done rather well and I could relate to many aspects of their lives.

What I did NOT like about the book was some of the "descriptive passages". Through out the book, Mr. Englehart tends to go off on LONG, DRAWN OUT descriptions of things, settings, clothing, etc that often confused me more than clarifying anything or painting a picture. Perhaps this is due to his past profession, comic books, where he could rely on the artwork to tell part of the story for him...now, without the artwork, he seems to be over compensating with too much verbal description. You be the judge.

If you are interested in modern/urban fantasy, wizards/shamans and some other "occult-ish" subjects, you should check this one out.
With all this said, I rated Mr. Englehart's book a solid 3.5 stars out of 5 stars. I have already bought the next two books of the series and I am looking forward to reading them (The Long Man, The Plain Man).

Published by TOR books; 308 pages
I own the Kindle version of the book. ( )

The only published novel to date (excluding one written under a house name) by legendary comic book scribe Steve Englehart (who has since rued having himself billed as "Stephen Englehart" here), The Point Man is a paperback original thriller that manages, mostly successfully, to be three books at once: a Cold War thriller; a fictional, adult treatise on the theory (if not quite the practice) of magick, with sidebars on sex magic and chaos magic (though the latter isn't named as such); and a Vietnam vet novel. Set during the last six days of the year at some indeterminate point in the 1980s (since Ronnie Ray-gun isn't name-checked, I suspect that The Point Man was actually written in the latter days of the 1970s or pre-November 1980), The Point Man begins rather clumsily but soon picks up speed and loses most of its wobble as weird stuff just keeps happening. The climactic big battle scene is actually semi-shocking as these things go; I can easily imagine this as a movie, but I'd hate to think what would likely be done to it in the course of "streamlining it" for the largest possible audience.

While mostly a thriller, there are moments in The Point Man that belie such a deceptively simple designation, particularly the reflections of the protagonist, Max August, upon a shameful -- and criminal -- incident in his tour of duty in Vietnam: these are made newly poignant in light of the fact that four U.S. Marines were formally charged last Friday, 22 December 2006, in the deaths of 24 Iraqi civilians in Haditha on 19 November 2005, including those of 11 women and children.

For anybody who continues to pull out old issues of the comic books that Englehart wrote and re-read them with pleasure and profit, The Point Man is an absolute must. For anybody who is still amazed at the sheer chutzpah of some of the author's funnybook plotlines -- Englehart is the man who whipped up a papal candidate (Silver Dagger) as a nemesis for Marvel Comics' premier magical hero, Dr. Strange -- take heart: there are even more gasp-and-grin-inducing surprises in store for you in The Point Man.

The Point Man garnered positive blurbs from no less than Robert Anton Wilson and Theodore Sturgeon; if these authors' praise is a bit misleading (particularly RAW's...), the tenor of it is nonetheless richly deserved. It's a crying shame that Englehart has yet to publish another novel, and has apparently been sidelined by the comic book companies -- Marvel and DC -- that he did so much for in the 1970s and 1980s. ( )