Wednesday , March 27 2024
Nonstop suspense, action, and thrills in a military horror novel.

Book Review: Khost by Vincent Hobbes

I was doubtful when I picked up Khost for review. I’d never read a military horror novel before, though I’ve always been a big fan of the first two Alien movies. The Alien movies are military science fiction, so I thought that perhaps the two genres would be similar. They were.

Well, as it turned out, I had no reason to be apprehensive. Khost was a very pleasant surprise, and I found myself caring about the characters and their predicament and engrossed in the story until the end.

The tale begins in 1984, with the Soviet Union engaged in the bloody war with Afghanistan. Afraid of losing, the Soviets develop a chemical weapon unlike any other in history, one with the power to enhance their soldiers in the battlefield.  They soon put it to the test in the province of Khost, where the Mujahideen hide inside a massive cave complex.

But things go awfully wrong. Instead of enhancing the humans, the chemical mutates them into beings that are way beyond human, into something horrifying and evil.

Move forward to 2010. The USA is at war with Afghanistan. And it becomes increasingly challenging in the province of Khost, where already an elite team of Delta Force Operators has gone missing. That is, except only one survivor, who has an incredible, terrifying story to tell, and whom nobody believes—nobody except the CIA, which soon sends a top-secret team to deal with the situation…

Khost is nonstop suspense, action, and thrills. The story moves at a heart-racing pace. The dialogue and descriptions ring with authenticity, and I was especially impressed with all the military language and details. I also found compelling the dynamic between the characters and their sense of comradeship.

None of them are your regular nice guy, yet they show admirable courage, honor, and responsibility for the wellbeing of their team. The scenes inside the cave are quite graphic and violent at times, but somehow they all felt essential to the story and not gratuitous. In sum, I enjoyed reading this novel and can fully recommend it to fans of thrillers, horror and science fiction, and well as those of you who would like to try something different.

Purchase KHOST on Amazon.

About Mayra Calvani

Mayra Calvani writes fiction and nonfiction for children and adults and has authored over a dozen books, some of which have won awards. Her stories, reviews, interviews and articles have appeared on numerous publications such as The Writer, Writer’s Journal, Multicultural Review, and Bloomsbury Review, among many others. Represented by Serendipity Literary.

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One comment

  1. Well, Im affraid, this one is just another (living) dead turkey.

    Cartoonish characters (Soviets who in the middle of eighties have Joe Stalin pictures on the walls – ever heard about destalinization in 1956, yeah, I guess so), zero attention to details ( only rifle known to author is an AK-47), silly dialogues (mujaheddins referring to themselves as Sir), and recycled plot (usual resident evil stuff). Action is not that great, most of the book is about bitching to each other, and endless small talk. With these so called production values you make a bestselling thriller these days… Yeah, right….