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The Militia House
Longlisted for the Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize
“An extraordinary novel about the quiet and not so quiet horrors of war.” —Roxane Gay
Stephen King meets Tim O’Brien in John Milas’s The Militia House, a spine-tingling and boldly original gothic horror novel.
It’s 2010, and the recently promoted Corporal Loyette and his unit are finishing up their deployment at a new base in Kajaki, Afghanistan. Their duties here are straightforward—loading and unloading cargo into and out of helicopters—and their days are a mix of boredom and dread. The Brits they’re replacing delight in telling them the history of the old barracks just off base, a Soviet-era militia house they claim is haunted, and Loyette and his men don’t need much convincing to make a clandestine trip outside the wire to explore it.
It’s a short, middle-of-the-day adventure, but the men experience a mounting agitation after their visit to the militia house. In the days that follow they try to forget about the strange, unsettling sights and sounds from the house, but things are increasingly . . . not right. Loyette becomes determined to ignore his and his marines’ growing unease, convinced that it’s just the strain of war playing tricks on them. But something about the militia house will not let them go.
Meticulously plotted and viscerally immediate in its telling, The Militia House is a gripping and brilliant exploration of the unceasing horrors of war that’s no more easily shaken than the militia house itself.
“An extraordinary novel about the quiet and not so quiet horrors of war.” —Roxane Gay
Stephen King meets Tim O’Brien in John Milas’s The Militia House, a spine-tingling and boldly original gothic horror novel.
It’s 2010, and the recently promoted Corporal Loyette and his unit are finishing up their deployment at a new base in Kajaki, Afghanistan. Their duties here are straightforward—loading and unloading cargo into and out of helicopters—and their days are a mix of boredom and dread. The Brits they’re replacing delight in telling them the history of the old barracks just off base, a Soviet-era militia house they claim is haunted, and Loyette and his men don’t need much convincing to make a clandestine trip outside the wire to explore it.
It’s a short, middle-of-the-day adventure, but the men experience a mounting agitation after their visit to the militia house. In the days that follow they try to forget about the strange, unsettling sights and sounds from the house, but things are increasingly . . . not right. Loyette becomes determined to ignore his and his marines’ growing unease, convinced that it’s just the strain of war playing tricks on them. But something about the militia house will not let them go.
Meticulously plotted and viscerally immediate in its telling, The Militia House is a gripping and brilliant exploration of the unceasing horrors of war that’s no more easily shaken than the militia house itself.
272 pages, Paperback
First published July 11, 2023
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17036 people want to read
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July 13, 2023
My complete review of The Militia House is published at Grimdark Magazine.
The Militia House is the debut horror novel from John Milas, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran who was deployed to Afghanistan in 2010. Milas brings his personal experience to The Militia House, which gives the first-person account of newly promoted Corporal Loyette, whose unit is assigned to a base in Kajaki, Afghanistan, in the same year as the author’s own deployment.
Loyette and his crew are replacing British soldiers who tell the Americans eerie stories of a nearby abandoned barracks. This so-called Militia House was the site of a massacre of Soviet soldiers at the end of the Soviet Union’s occupation of Afghanistan in 1989.
The daily life of the soldiers is quite monotonous, and curiosity gets the best of Loyette and his unit as they explore the Militia House. They soon find strange unaccountable writings and become plagued by nightmares.
John Milas’s writing is well-honed, particularly for a debut novel. The author’s real-life experiences as a marine in Afghanistan enable him to give a realistic depiction of a soldier’s life on duty. Loyette’s narration flows smoothly, aside from the occasional use of military jargon and an odd obsession with Nicki Minaj that seems an awkward fit for the rest of the novel.
The first half of The Militia House is rather slow paced, reflecting the dullness of a typical soldier’s life during deployment. But the unsettling nature of The Militia House gradually builds throughout the novel, leading up to a perfectly executed climax that kept me flipping the pages till the very end.
Milas is especially adept at describing the emotional tolls of deployment in a war zone, even for soldiers who have not seen direct combat. The onset of post-traumatic stress disorder can be subtle, often manifesting in unconscious ways. Milas also explores the impact on military families, both during their loved ones’ deployment in dangerous locales so far from home and in the aftermath of their service.
Corporal Loyette has been deeply affected by the loss of his older brother, who died during his own military service and is viewed by everyone as a hero. Many of Loyette’s decisions are driven by him questioning his own self-worth considering his brother’s sacrifice.
One peculiarity of The Militia House is that the Afghan people play essentially no role in the story. It would have been interesting to consider how the interactions between the occupying soldiers and local people could have influenced the plot.
Overall, The Militia House is a highly accomplished debut horror rooted in reality. The horror elements gradually creep up on the reader, reflecting both the terror of experiencing an active war zone and the psychological tolls experienced by soldiers in the aftermath of their deployment.
The Militia House is the debut horror novel from John Milas, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran who was deployed to Afghanistan in 2010. Milas brings his personal experience to The Militia House, which gives the first-person account of newly promoted Corporal Loyette, whose unit is assigned to a base in Kajaki, Afghanistan, in the same year as the author’s own deployment.
Loyette and his crew are replacing British soldiers who tell the Americans eerie stories of a nearby abandoned barracks. This so-called Militia House was the site of a massacre of Soviet soldiers at the end of the Soviet Union’s occupation of Afghanistan in 1989.
The daily life of the soldiers is quite monotonous, and curiosity gets the best of Loyette and his unit as they explore the Militia House. They soon find strange unaccountable writings and become plagued by nightmares.
John Milas’s writing is well-honed, particularly for a debut novel. The author’s real-life experiences as a marine in Afghanistan enable him to give a realistic depiction of a soldier’s life on duty. Loyette’s narration flows smoothly, aside from the occasional use of military jargon and an odd obsession with Nicki Minaj that seems an awkward fit for the rest of the novel.
The first half of The Militia House is rather slow paced, reflecting the dullness of a typical soldier’s life during deployment. But the unsettling nature of The Militia House gradually builds throughout the novel, leading up to a perfectly executed climax that kept me flipping the pages till the very end.
Milas is especially adept at describing the emotional tolls of deployment in a war zone, even for soldiers who have not seen direct combat. The onset of post-traumatic stress disorder can be subtle, often manifesting in unconscious ways. Milas also explores the impact on military families, both during their loved ones’ deployment in dangerous locales so far from home and in the aftermath of their service.
Corporal Loyette has been deeply affected by the loss of his older brother, who died during his own military service and is viewed by everyone as a hero. Many of Loyette’s decisions are driven by him questioning his own self-worth considering his brother’s sacrifice.
One peculiarity of The Militia House is that the Afghan people play essentially no role in the story. It would have been interesting to consider how the interactions between the occupying soldiers and local people could have influenced the plot.
Overall, The Militia House is a highly accomplished debut horror rooted in reality. The horror elements gradually creep up on the reader, reflecting both the terror of experiencing an active war zone and the psychological tolls experienced by soldiers in the aftermath of their deployment.
April 10, 2023
There is a lot to like here, a horror novel set in a place of actual horrors. Some great creepy elements and the last third is fantastic, which is usually the opposite of what you normally see in a horror novel.
It's hard to get mad about one of its major weaknesses, the pacing. Because it's so important for Milas to establish the monotony of Loyette's life on a small military outpost in Afghanistan. I think you could have still really gotten that monotony across but started building tension earlier. It took a long time for the tension to reach a more palpable point, too long, in my opinion. But I get what Milas is going for and he's good at establishing the boredom and misery for these characters.
Milas doesn't hit you over the head with the metaphor here, he gives you plenty of the monotony as well as the futility. The work Loyette's team is doing is specific and dull, but the mission they are enabling is another question. They unload giant guns, they unload ammunition, will these guns do nothing? Will they kill civilians? We will never know and neither will Loyette. It could be either one. The horrors when they do come reflect the pointlessness of it all, the cycle of war after war fought for no real purpose, with no real design, inflicting pain upon pain.
One thing that nagged at me is how we see maybe one Afghan person in the entire novel. That detachment from the people they are either saving or slaughtering is certainly purposeful, and it may well be accurate, but it only served to remind me of just how much work was done to hide the human toll of it all. The novel only continues this pattern, and while I see Milas' reasons for it, I couldn't shake some discomfort.
As a horror novel, it is a very slow burn but when they come the scary stuff is the kind of stuff that can linger in your brain. It's not going to really scare most readers but it will leave you feeling unsettled and even disturbed, which is just as it should be.
It's hard to get mad about one of its major weaknesses, the pacing. Because it's so important for Milas to establish the monotony of Loyette's life on a small military outpost in Afghanistan. I think you could have still really gotten that monotony across but started building tension earlier. It took a long time for the tension to reach a more palpable point, too long, in my opinion. But I get what Milas is going for and he's good at establishing the boredom and misery for these characters.
Milas doesn't hit you over the head with the metaphor here, he gives you plenty of the monotony as well as the futility. The work Loyette's team is doing is specific and dull, but the mission they are enabling is another question. They unload giant guns, they unload ammunition, will these guns do nothing? Will they kill civilians? We will never know and neither will Loyette. It could be either one. The horrors when they do come reflect the pointlessness of it all, the cycle of war after war fought for no real purpose, with no real design, inflicting pain upon pain.
One thing that nagged at me is how we see maybe one Afghan person in the entire novel. That detachment from the people they are either saving or slaughtering is certainly purposeful, and it may well be accurate, but it only served to remind me of just how much work was done to hide the human toll of it all. The novel only continues this pattern, and while I see Milas' reasons for it, I couldn't shake some discomfort.
As a horror novel, it is a very slow burn but when they come the scary stuff is the kind of stuff that can linger in your brain. It's not going to really scare most readers but it will leave you feeling unsettled and even disturbed, which is just as it should be.
June 14, 2023
The Militia House is a debut novel by John Milas, a veteran who studied creative writing under Roxane Gay. A horror novel set in war-torn Afghanistan, The Militia House follows Corporal Loyette, whose day-to-day is a boring stream of mundane tasks without any larger context. Desperate for stimulation, he and his unit are drawn to a nearby building called The Militia House, which is purported to be the haunted sight of a last stand between rival factions that resulted in some men being skinned alive. After visiting The Militia House, Loyette and his unit begin to have strange, unsettling experiences they can't explain - strange dreams, phantom sensations, finding porcupine quills. They begin to be unable to trust even their own memory. The Militia House is a clever representation of the horrors of war and PTSD through a horror set at war and a propulsive read. While I wish that more of an explanation had been given at the end for the experiences had by the characters throughout this book, the lack of explanation made the book even more unsettling and paralleled well with the trauma of shooting and killing and not fully knowing why. A fabulous debut - I highly recommend it!
✅ Debut Novel
✅ Written by a Veteran
✅ Horror
✅ Military Fiction
Thanks so much to John Milas and Henry Holt & Company for this ARC through NetGalley. The Militia House will be available for purchase July 11th, 2023!
✅ Debut Novel
✅ Written by a Veteran
✅ Horror
✅ Military Fiction
Thanks so much to John Milas and Henry Holt & Company for this ARC through NetGalley. The Militia House will be available for purchase July 11th, 2023!
July 19, 2023
All I can think in the moment is this: I am not a compassionate person. I didn't come here to help, not people and not dogs.
The blurb describes this as Stephen King meets Tim O'Brien, but for my money the closer cross is House of Leaves with Jugheads; and like House of Leaves, a hauntingly good premise was let down by a flubbed ending and a lack of the depth I was looking for from the story.
It starts off well, with a small group of Marines on a desert base, bored and in a state of flux that leaves them unsettled and looking for distraction from anything out of the ordinary. John Milas does a great job with building those relationships, given the narrator's lack of real care about most things and people around him; I felt like I knew him, and the military details rang very true.
On the other hand though, the ending was frustrating; House of Leaves similarly let me down after intriguing me throughout, and I wanted more from The Militia House, too. Ambiguity is one thing, but both books felt like they wanted to say something and just couldn't quite get it out. And I wanted more from the hints of tension with the locals, from the militia house itself, from the threads left dangling that never quite went anywhere. All of them were touched on but too briefly; enough that I felt them missing and wanted to see where they could have gone.
It's definitely a promising debut here, despite the issues I had with it. I'll be really interested to see what John Milas puts out next.
The blurb describes this as Stephen King meets Tim O'Brien, but for my money the closer cross is House of Leaves with Jugheads; and like House of Leaves, a hauntingly good premise was let down by a flubbed ending and a lack of the depth I was looking for from the story.
It starts off well, with a small group of Marines on a desert base, bored and in a state of flux that leaves them unsettled and looking for distraction from anything out of the ordinary. John Milas does a great job with building those relationships, given the narrator's lack of real care about most things and people around him; I felt like I knew him, and the military details rang very true.
On the other hand though, the ending was frustrating; House of Leaves similarly let me down after intriguing me throughout, and I wanted more from The Militia House, too. Ambiguity is one thing, but both books felt like they wanted to say something and just couldn't quite get it out. And I wanted more from the hints of tension with the locals, from the militia house itself, from the threads left dangling that never quite went anywhere. All of them were touched on but too briefly; enough that I felt them missing and wanted to see where they could have gone.
It's definitely a promising debut here, despite the issues I had with it. I'll be really interested to see what John Milas puts out next.
September 6, 2023
Gothic horror isn't my jam so take my review with a grain of salt.
It's not a bad novel and there's certainly a striking imagery I just wish Milas had done more with it because as it is it feels a little rushed and lacking in payoff.
It's not a bad novel and there's certainly a striking imagery I just wish Milas had done more with it because as it is it feels a little rushed and lacking in payoff.
September 23, 2024
I'm coming down from the adrenaline rush and I'm thinking about all this bullshit. I could still be in college somewhere else, somewhere better than this. How fucking naive was I to think wearing a uniform would be better than school? How stupid was I to think it was worth signing up to die instead of fixing the things about my life that were broken? How stupid were any of us to think this was just an adventure? We've treated this like it's all been about sightseeing, writing blogs, posting pictures on Facebook, getting medals, tax-free pay, showing off, and telling war stories to people back home who don’t know any better.
A fantastic slow build horror book that examines the weird juxtaposition of banality and surreality of war, mixed with the frightening decay of one’s own mind and fracturing of reality.
With absolutely effective use of an increasingly unreliable narrator, John Milas ratchets the tension with a slow but inexorable hand. This was especially effective with the masterful narration in the audiobook version. The utterance of the final line literally gave me chills. An amazing debut by a talented new author to watch.
”No one made me join the Marines or come to Afghanistan. I chose both of those. All of this has been worthless. I would have never known the truth if I hadn't come here with a gun like people have been doing since before I was old enough to enlist. Since before I was born. No one back home knows what it's like here because they weren't as desperate as I was. They're all so lucky they can ignore everything. I wish I was like them. But now I'm stuck here, and I'll never be able to tell them what it's like. They'll keep living their busy, important lives forgetting there's a war happening here. I can't move. I can't move and it's too late. Too late for everything. There's nowhere to go. Nothing else to think about. I wish the militia house would send me somewhere else again, somewhere good, just one last time.
A fantastic slow build horror book that examines the weird juxtaposition of banality and surreality of war, mixed with the frightening decay of one’s own mind and fracturing of reality.
With absolutely effective use of an increasingly unreliable narrator, John Milas ratchets the tension with a slow but inexorable hand. This was especially effective with the masterful narration in the audiobook version. The utterance of the final line literally gave me chills. An amazing debut by a talented new author to watch.
”No one made me join the Marines or come to Afghanistan. I chose both of those. All of this has been worthless. I would have never known the truth if I hadn't come here with a gun like people have been doing since before I was old enough to enlist. Since before I was born. No one back home knows what it's like here because they weren't as desperate as I was. They're all so lucky they can ignore everything. I wish I was like them. But now I'm stuck here, and I'll never be able to tell them what it's like. They'll keep living their busy, important lives forgetting there's a war happening here. I can't move. I can't move and it's too late. Too late for everything. There's nowhere to go. Nothing else to think about. I wish the militia house would send me somewhere else again, somewhere good, just one last time.
August 26, 2023
Something bad happened there.
So many haunted house stories start off that way.
Sometimes its nothing more than whispered rumor. No one knows quite what happened but it was bad and it left a mark that lingers. Sometimes its nothing more than a bad feeling, a little shiver down the spine as you walk past on a chilly fall night. Sometimes its just a fleeting shadow in the corner of your eye that isn't too hard to write off even as it leaves you wondering.
And sometimes a place is so deeply marked with violence and hatred and death that the very air reeks of it. Its seductive and repulsive in equal measures. Impossible to resist even as you're retching and clawing at the walls to escape.
The militia house is that kind of haunted house.
I've never read a book quite like this one. I'm not a fan of war or political fiction and couldn't tell you the first thing about the history of the American military that I haven't picked up from the occasional news story or movie trailer. But I cannot resist a good ghost story.
This one is set in post 9/11 Afghanistan and its protagonist, Loyette, is a corporal who finds himself deployed to a new base in remote Kajaki with a group of marines he barley knows. Though he's technically been promoted his star is not exactly on the rise after his blog posts about daily marine life come to the attention of his superiors.
He's also plagued by feelings of inadequacy and uselessness, unable to see his role as anything other than one more cog in a machine that serves no purpose. His days are spent leading his men in the shifting and organizing of supplies as troops move in and out of the town. His nights are sleepless and full of regret for a life half lived and taken for granted.
So when some British marines about to ship out offer to show his men "the militia house" and share a grisly story about its past he agrees to let them all go despite some vague misgivings he can't quite pinpoint.
What follows is equal parts existential dread as a soldier confronts the realities of war and his part in it and surreal, visceral horror that unfolds like the nightmare lovechild of Lynch and Cronenberg.
The overwhelming feeling I was left with after finishing this was loneliness. Just the desperate, endless loneliness of losing yourself and any real sense of purpose in the mindless, hopeless drudgery of this kind of life. The kind of loneliness that could lead, effortlessly, into madness.
John Milas's writing is simple and stunning in its sparse, biting execution. His words feel like gun shots. Clipped and humorless and sometimes deeply painful. There's a particular quote I keep coming back to.
We hardly know anything. And we never really learned why we're still here after so many years, like why haven't we gotten Osama yet? No one has ever answered for that, because answering for that doesn't change things from our perspective. Our job is to do what we're told. No one brought us here to think or learn.
This is not a pleasant book and not a ghost story in the traditional sense but it is deeply haunting and beautifully written. Highly recommend, but not for the faint of heart.
So many haunted house stories start off that way.
Sometimes its nothing more than whispered rumor. No one knows quite what happened but it was bad and it left a mark that lingers. Sometimes its nothing more than a bad feeling, a little shiver down the spine as you walk past on a chilly fall night. Sometimes its just a fleeting shadow in the corner of your eye that isn't too hard to write off even as it leaves you wondering.
And sometimes a place is so deeply marked with violence and hatred and death that the very air reeks of it. Its seductive and repulsive in equal measures. Impossible to resist even as you're retching and clawing at the walls to escape.
The militia house is that kind of haunted house.
I've never read a book quite like this one. I'm not a fan of war or political fiction and couldn't tell you the first thing about the history of the American military that I haven't picked up from the occasional news story or movie trailer. But I cannot resist a good ghost story.
This one is set in post 9/11 Afghanistan and its protagonist, Loyette, is a corporal who finds himself deployed to a new base in remote Kajaki with a group of marines he barley knows. Though he's technically been promoted his star is not exactly on the rise after his blog posts about daily marine life come to the attention of his superiors.
He's also plagued by feelings of inadequacy and uselessness, unable to see his role as anything other than one more cog in a machine that serves no purpose. His days are spent leading his men in the shifting and organizing of supplies as troops move in and out of the town. His nights are sleepless and full of regret for a life half lived and taken for granted.
So when some British marines about to ship out offer to show his men "the militia house" and share a grisly story about its past he agrees to let them all go despite some vague misgivings he can't quite pinpoint.
What follows is equal parts existential dread as a soldier confronts the realities of war and his part in it and surreal, visceral horror that unfolds like the nightmare lovechild of Lynch and Cronenberg.
The overwhelming feeling I was left with after finishing this was loneliness. Just the desperate, endless loneliness of losing yourself and any real sense of purpose in the mindless, hopeless drudgery of this kind of life. The kind of loneliness that could lead, effortlessly, into madness.
John Milas's writing is simple and stunning in its sparse, biting execution. His words feel like gun shots. Clipped and humorless and sometimes deeply painful. There's a particular quote I keep coming back to.
We hardly know anything. And we never really learned why we're still here after so many years, like why haven't we gotten Osama yet? No one has ever answered for that, because answering for that doesn't change things from our perspective. Our job is to do what we're told. No one brought us here to think or learn.
This is not a pleasant book and not a ghost story in the traditional sense but it is deeply haunting and beautifully written. Highly recommend, but not for the faint of heart.
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October 20, 2023
The GWOT version of "Hotel California."
You can check-out any time you like but you can never leave.
The way this captured...so many things about the Marine Corps that I just can't put into words (although I never went to Afghanistan).
tbh I'm laughing at some of the civilian reviews.
*bumping up to five stars because I don't think this one is going to leave my head for a while.
You can check-out any time you like but you can never leave.
The way this captured...so many things about the Marine Corps that I just can't put into words (although I never went to Afghanistan).
tbh I'm laughing at some of the civilian reviews.
*bumping up to five stars because I don't think this one is going to leave my head for a while.
July 18, 2023
Boring as hell
May 7, 2023
3.5 stars
A very creepy book set on a NATO base in Afghanistan, where things aren’t exactly what they seem. It kept me engaged to the end, but I wish there had been a bit more explanation of the haunting.
[What I liked:]
•I don’t read a lot of horror or war novels, but this book felt unique to me. The horror isn’t tied to the current conflict happening in the story, at least not on the surface. Unlike his brother, Alex (the MC) doesn’t seem to have experienced much violence during his deployment. The horror has more to do (I think) with his personal insecurities than anything, which was interesting.
•The story wasn’t very suspenseful until halfway through, but it definitely felt creepy almost from the start. By the end, it felt practically Twilight Zone level of uncanny valley. Personal preference, but I prefer scary stories that rely more on an unnerving dread than on gruesomeness.
[What I didn’t like as much:]
•So the house was haunted because some Soviet soldiers were killed there. How does that connect to porcupines or the drawings? Who/what was actually haunting the place? Why was that entity trying to punish Alex & his fellow marines? I was hoping that by the end there would be some more depth to the symbolism, or hints of the motivation behind the malevolence, but there wasn’t.
•Some aspects of the ending were very disconcerting & creepy, but the very last chapter just confused me; who was Alex apologizing to, & why did they seem to listen? What actually happened at the end? It was rather muddled.
CW: mentions of combat death & torture, racism, substance abuse, psychological horror, animal injury
[I received an ARC ebook copy from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. Thank you for the book!]
A very creepy book set on a NATO base in Afghanistan, where things aren’t exactly what they seem. It kept me engaged to the end, but I wish there had been a bit more explanation of the haunting.
[What I liked:]
•I don’t read a lot of horror or war novels, but this book felt unique to me. The horror isn’t tied to the current conflict happening in the story, at least not on the surface. Unlike his brother, Alex (the MC) doesn’t seem to have experienced much violence during his deployment. The horror has more to do (I think) with his personal insecurities than anything, which was interesting.
•The story wasn’t very suspenseful until halfway through, but it definitely felt creepy almost from the start. By the end, it felt practically Twilight Zone level of uncanny valley. Personal preference, but I prefer scary stories that rely more on an unnerving dread than on gruesomeness.
[What I didn’t like as much:]
•So the house was haunted because some Soviet soldiers were killed there. How does that connect to porcupines or the drawings? Who/what was actually haunting the place? Why was that entity trying to punish Alex & his fellow marines? I was hoping that by the end there would be some more depth to the symbolism, or hints of the motivation behind the malevolence, but there wasn’t.
•Some aspects of the ending were very disconcerting & creepy, but the very last chapter just confused me; who was Alex apologizing to, & why did they seem to listen? What actually happened at the end? It was rather muddled.
CW: mentions of combat death & torture, racism, substance abuse, psychological horror, animal injury
[I received an ARC ebook copy from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. Thank you for the book!]
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 14, 2023
Very good. Excellently creepy. Set in an entirely different locale, for a haunted house story, that is.
Corporal Alex Layotte is in charge of three other marines. In Afghanistan, 2010. Their jobs are sort of ordinary, routine, bordering on drudgery, but they do them and they do them well. Basically, it's unloading and loading military supplies at a small base camp out in the desert. It's hot, dry, miserable out there. They have enough food, place to sleep, but not much else but boredom, and sometimes, pointless rules they have to follow - without question!
And so they do, but the thing is this - nearby is an abandoned 'militia house' left by the Russians. Stories say it's the location where a group of Russian soldiers were ambushed, tortured and murdered. The place is now a dump filled with garbage, but things about it seem a little 'off,' and so...
In real life would any of us go into an abandoned building anywhere, of any kind, that seems a little 'off?' Well, of course we would! (I know I did as a kid; my building was a boarded-up church.) So naturally they find a way to explore the place and that's when...
Spoilersville!
This is more than just a haunted house story, btw. It's also about what it feels like to be a soldier in a dirty, rotten war, to take orders without question, to accept whatever comes your way. It's also about coming home to certain expectations and finding everything is just 'wrong,' because that world feels as 'off' as the militia house itself.
This is an interesting, compelling and fascinating read. Mystery and horror alongside the inner life of a confused young man trying to justify his life choices while also facing something much bigger than himself.
Highly recommended.
Five stars.
Corporal Alex Layotte is in charge of three other marines. In Afghanistan, 2010. Their jobs are sort of ordinary, routine, bordering on drudgery, but they do them and they do them well. Basically, it's unloading and loading military supplies at a small base camp out in the desert. It's hot, dry, miserable out there. They have enough food, place to sleep, but not much else but boredom, and sometimes, pointless rules they have to follow - without question!
And so they do, but the thing is this - nearby is an abandoned 'militia house' left by the Russians. Stories say it's the location where a group of Russian soldiers were ambushed, tortured and murdered. The place is now a dump filled with garbage, but things about it seem a little 'off,' and so...
In real life would any of us go into an abandoned building anywhere, of any kind, that seems a little 'off?' Well, of course we would! (I know I did as a kid; my building was a boarded-up church.) So naturally they find a way to explore the place and that's when...
Spoilersville!
This is more than just a haunted house story, btw. It's also about what it feels like to be a soldier in a dirty, rotten war, to take orders without question, to accept whatever comes your way. It's also about coming home to certain expectations and finding everything is just 'wrong,' because that world feels as 'off' as the militia house itself.
This is an interesting, compelling and fascinating read. Mystery and horror alongside the inner life of a confused young man trying to justify his life choices while also facing something much bigger than himself.
Highly recommended.
Five stars.
April 20, 2023
OH MY GOSH. THIS ONE WAS IMMACULATELY DONE.
Holy forking shirt balls, I am still friggin flabbergasted.
I am so thankful to John Milas, Henry Holt Books, NetGalley, and Macmillan Audio for granting me advanced audiobook access to this horrifically excellent piece of art before it publishes on July 11, 2023.
The Militia House is a somewhat novella-based story detailing the horrors of war in Afghanistan, where even the troops had no idea what they were doing in the country, trapped in a haze from the blisteringly brutal heat waves, left seeing supposed ghosts and terrifying occurrences after venturing into the infamous "Militia House" that sits abandoned and neglected outside their base.
When a soldier known to sleep-walk, talk, and ramble in a somewhat possessed state goes missing, the remaining battalion is left dumbstruck, not doing what to believe out of the fear of being called crazy. When Corporal Loyette is sent home earlier than expected, he has difficulty reintegrating into normal everyday, suburban life, haunted by the ghosts of his time in combat.
Those ghosts, disguised and symbolizing PTSD in reality, seem to follow him home, plaguing his every move and keeping him from normalcy until these old-world demons have completed their mission.
I feel like I've read several ghost stories from ex-military members and veterans detailing the ages-old tales and legends that have left privateers quaking in their boots, and it's even more interesting to read a fictional instance of this genuine issue surrounding PTSD and veteran treatment as a whole. Very well done.
Holy forking shirt balls, I am still friggin flabbergasted.
I am so thankful to John Milas, Henry Holt Books, NetGalley, and Macmillan Audio for granting me advanced audiobook access to this horrifically excellent piece of art before it publishes on July 11, 2023.
The Militia House is a somewhat novella-based story detailing the horrors of war in Afghanistan, where even the troops had no idea what they were doing in the country, trapped in a haze from the blisteringly brutal heat waves, left seeing supposed ghosts and terrifying occurrences after venturing into the infamous "Militia House" that sits abandoned and neglected outside their base.
When a soldier known to sleep-walk, talk, and ramble in a somewhat possessed state goes missing, the remaining battalion is left dumbstruck, not doing what to believe out of the fear of being called crazy. When Corporal Loyette is sent home earlier than expected, he has difficulty reintegrating into normal everyday, suburban life, haunted by the ghosts of his time in combat.
Those ghosts, disguised and symbolizing PTSD in reality, seem to follow him home, plaguing his every move and keeping him from normalcy until these old-world demons have completed their mission.
I feel like I've read several ghost stories from ex-military members and veterans detailing the ages-old tales and legends that have left privateers quaking in their boots, and it's even more interesting to read a fictional instance of this genuine issue surrounding PTSD and veteran treatment as a whole. Very well done.
February 11, 2024
This book was amazing. Character, setting, and the supernatural elements all combined perfectly. I expect this book is going to be a sleeper that slowly finds its much larger audience.
Unlike much military horror, there are no great battles or monsters on the battlefield. There’s also no hearty, false comradery. Loyette is a kid doing the best he can. He’s a low-level marine with a sudden responsibility for three other men he barely knows. He’s cut off from his friends and family at a forward base in Afghanistan, subject to the whims of superiors, and kept in the dark about everything outside his immediate responsibility (as is the way of the military). When an ill-defined horror from the nearby militia house starts eating away at his perceptions, he has no resources outside his own, already strained psyche.
I would call this a slow-burn, cosmic horror. When strange things start happening, there’s always plenty of doubt: Is this something normal for the situation? Is this just in the characters' heads? Is one of the other marines messing with them? Have you ever had the experience of someone in a foreign country doing something that seems really messed up, but you aren’t sure how much of it may be normal for the culture? Multiply that by 100.
As others have said, there is a lot of detail about the day to day at the base. I didn’t find any of it tiresome; it effectively showed the bizarreness creeping into the mundane. Also, as with much cosmic horror, don’t expect easy answers or a nice, neat resolution.
Some comps I see with this book are Jonathan Raab, Tim O’Brian, Laird Barron, and House of Leaves.
Unlike much military horror, there are no great battles or monsters on the battlefield. There’s also no hearty, false comradery. Loyette is a kid doing the best he can. He’s a low-level marine with a sudden responsibility for three other men he barely knows. He’s cut off from his friends and family at a forward base in Afghanistan, subject to the whims of superiors, and kept in the dark about everything outside his immediate responsibility (as is the way of the military). When an ill-defined horror from the nearby militia house starts eating away at his perceptions, he has no resources outside his own, already strained psyche.
I would call this a slow-burn, cosmic horror. When strange things start happening, there’s always plenty of doubt: Is this something normal for the situation? Is this just in the characters' heads? Is one of the other marines messing with them? Have you ever had the experience of someone in a foreign country doing something that seems really messed up, but you aren’t sure how much of it may be normal for the culture? Multiply that by 100.
As others have said, there is a lot of detail about the day to day at the base. I didn’t find any of it tiresome; it effectively showed the bizarreness creeping into the mundane. Also, as with much cosmic horror, don’t expect easy answers or a nice, neat resolution.
Some comps I see with this book are Jonathan Raab, Tim O’Brian, Laird Barron, and House of Leaves.
October 16, 2023
It is so refreshing to come across a horror novel that feels like it's trying to say something new instead of the umpteenth exploration into grief that we've all seen before. I mean, not for the characters it isn't - they went through some shit - but I as a reader got a lot of enjoyment out of this one.
Spoiler-free rundown is that an American unit is replacing a British squadron at a base in the middle of nowhere, 2010 Afghanistan. There's an abandoned building on a hill overlooking the base that the Brits claimed is where a bunch of Soviet soldiers were brutally killed back in the 70's and it's best to stay away from it. After weeks of mindless logistics and no word on when they're leaving, the Americans eventually get bored, go to check it out, and things go downhill from there.
To me the central theme here was regret, but a certain flavor of regret that is unique to soldiers. And I'm not talking about regret over taking a life; the protagonist never sees real combat (although the few close-calls with Taliban insurgents were extremely suspenseful). Without giving too much away, I felt it was more about regrets over decisions, particularly from an officer who has people under him who's lives hinge on him making the right call. But also there were some other regrets the main character harbored that had lesser ramifications than life-or-death matters that civilians could also relate to.
Corporal Loyette was an interesting protagonist who you could tell always had a lot more going on in his head than he was sharing with the others around him. But what really got me was that past the halfway point of the book he drops that he's only 22 years old, and a lot of my previous judgements of him converted to thoughts of "Jesus, you're just a kid..." (This is especially evident when he finally gets back home from deployment and tries adjusting back into civilian life.) And what made that easier for me was that I was only 21 myself in 2010; had I dropped out of college and joined the military like he did, I could've had a life similar to some of the peripheral characters in this book.
This is really nitpicky, but in my head I'm giving this one a 4.75 stars, but I'll just round up here. The very end of the book sort of hit a trope I don't usually care for and had an initial disappointment towards, but after marinating on it for a bit I could see the logic behind ending the story that way. And I still enjoyed so much of the rest of the book that I'm not gonna let that hold me back from recommending this one to horror fans who are looking for a unique setting and tone.
Spoiler-free rundown is that an American unit is replacing a British squadron at a base in the middle of nowhere, 2010 Afghanistan. There's an abandoned building on a hill overlooking the base that the Brits claimed is where a bunch of Soviet soldiers were brutally killed back in the 70's and it's best to stay away from it. After weeks of mindless logistics and no word on when they're leaving, the Americans eventually get bored, go to check it out, and things go downhill from there.
To me the central theme here was regret, but a certain flavor of regret that is unique to soldiers. And I'm not talking about regret over taking a life; the protagonist never sees real combat (although the few close-calls with Taliban insurgents were extremely suspenseful). Without giving too much away, I felt it was more about regrets over decisions, particularly from an officer who has people under him who's lives hinge on him making the right call. But also there were some other regrets the main character harbored that had lesser ramifications than life-or-death matters that civilians could also relate to.
Corporal Loyette was an interesting protagonist who you could tell always had a lot more going on in his head than he was sharing with the others around him. But what really got me was that past the halfway point of the book he drops that he's only 22 years old, and a lot of my previous judgements of him converted to thoughts of "Jesus, you're just a kid..." (This is especially evident when he finally gets back home from deployment and tries adjusting back into civilian life.) And what made that easier for me was that I was only 21 myself in 2010; had I dropped out of college and joined the military like he did, I could've had a life similar to some of the peripheral characters in this book.
This is really nitpicky, but in my head I'm giving this one a 4.75 stars, but I'll just round up here. The very end of the book sort of hit a trope I don't usually care for and had an initial disappointment towards, but after marinating on it for a bit I could see the logic behind ending the story that way. And I still enjoyed so much of the rest of the book that I'm not gonna let that hold me back from recommending this one to horror fans who are looking for a unique setting and tone.
January 22, 2024
Gosh, I just did not like this at all. 1.5 stars at most. I felt like there was just nothing really redeeming about this major snooze fest of a novel. Nothing really truly happened that was scary, thought provoking the entire time I read this. Was the guy schizophrenic? Was everything that surrounded this novel real?
I loathed the fact the author was so sure of himself that he felt the need to use copious amounts of military jargon without explanation of what those abbreviations meant at the expense of readers who had little to no military experience. I really infuriated me to be honest. I knew some lingo but not all, and I had to look up the terminology on more than a handful of occasions. Super annoying!
Roxanne Gay blurbed this and was thanked by the author in the acknowledgements, why?!? Obviously, I am missing something. I did not feel a connection to any of these characters, the writing seemed a bit repetitive as well.
The funny thing is, I liked the final chapters the most. Porcupine quills anyone???
Moving on!
I loathed the fact the author was so sure of himself that he felt the need to use copious amounts of military jargon without explanation of what those abbreviations meant at the expense of readers who had little to no military experience. I really infuriated me to be honest. I knew some lingo but not all, and I had to look up the terminology on more than a handful of occasions. Super annoying!
Roxanne Gay blurbed this and was thanked by the author in the acknowledgements, why?!? Obviously, I am missing something. I did not feel a connection to any of these characters, the writing seemed a bit repetitive as well.
The funny thing is, I liked the final chapters the most. Porcupine quills anyone???
Moving on!
August 29, 2024
Incredible novel. Terrifying. I think sadly people are turned off by the military aspect of this novel which is a huge bummer because it's so well written. Horrifying , and genuinely scary. I really loved this one.
August 4, 2023
I was very bored for the first 150-200 pages. It was just a bunch of military jargon and day to day living with unimportant characters and very little tension.
I wanted Loyette to go home so he would shut up, honestly.
But once the Militia House began to actually feature, it took such a weird and far-too-vague turn that I was neither expecting nor that I enjoyed. I'm sure I missed the symbolism in porcupine quills and the dog and endless void but I felt like I was given sooo little as the reader that I didn't feel like giving this story any of my brainpower to dive deeper.
If Milas wanted us to see the symbolism then a.) write a longer story with fleshed out characters b.) have a better entity c.) write something concrete.
It just read like a reddit horror story that I've heard a thousand times before.
The only part that felt truly horrifying was the mirage of Loyette coming home and having to adapt to civilian life. That should've been explored more because that was the only part of the book that shined.
I wanted Loyette to go home so he would shut up, honestly.
But once the Militia House began to actually feature, it took such a weird and far-too-vague turn that I was neither expecting nor that I enjoyed. I'm sure I missed the symbolism in porcupine quills and the dog and endless void but I felt like I was given sooo little as the reader that I didn't feel like giving this story any of my brainpower to dive deeper.
If Milas wanted us to see the symbolism then a.) write a longer story with fleshed out characters b.) have a better entity c.) write something concrete.
It just read like a reddit horror story that I've heard a thousand times before.
The only part that felt truly horrifying was the mirage of Loyette coming home and having to adapt to civilian life. That should've been explored more because that was the only part of the book that shined.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 18, 2023
4.5 rounded up
July 31, 2023
I feel like this book is incomplete. For horror, leaving things behind the curtain is the norm, but in this, there's too much left there.
August 14, 2023
Psychological horror novel set in 2010 Afghanistan during the Afghanistan war. It focuses on a supernatural force that inhabits an abandoned militia house from the Soviet era. The horror has a slow build up, with a creeping sense of dread for those who had gone inside the militia house. The story also deals with the futility of this war.
Fans of books like House of Leaves, The Turn of the Screw, and Come Closer by Sara Gran might like this book. A bit more subtle and ambiguous than many other horror stories but I liked it.
Fans of books like House of Leaves, The Turn of the Screw, and Come Closer by Sara Gran might like this book. A bit more subtle and ambiguous than many other horror stories but I liked it.
March 5, 2023
"No one made me join the Marines or come to Afghanistan. I chose both of those. All of this has been worthless. I would have never known the truth if I hadn't come here with a gun like people have been doing since before I was old enough to enlist. Since before I was born. No one back home knows what it's like here because they weren't as desperate as I was. They're all so lucky they can ignore everything. I wish I was like them. But now I'm stuck here, and I'll never be able to tell them what it's like. They'll keep living their busy, important lives forgetting there's a war happening here. I can't move, I can't move and it's too late. Too late for everything."
This is a neat slow burn horror. Corporal Loyette is deployed with his unit in Afghanistan. One day, a British unit tells them of an old soviet base nearby called the Militia house that's supposedly haunted, and Loyette and a few others decide to check it out. There's not much to see in the House, but soon after Loyette and the others start having strange dreams. It becomes clear that he and others have been changed by going into the house.
This is also a really good and harsh look at the realities of war for our soldiers overseas, and the trials they go through. The author is a veteran himself, and that's why these parts felt so authentic to read.
It took a while for the story to really grab me, which is why in the end it's a 3.5 star read for me.
Thank you netgalley and Henry Holt & Company for giving me an advanced review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
This is a neat slow burn horror. Corporal Loyette is deployed with his unit in Afghanistan. One day, a British unit tells them of an old soviet base nearby called the Militia house that's supposedly haunted, and Loyette and a few others decide to check it out. There's not much to see in the House, but soon after Loyette and the others start having strange dreams. It becomes clear that he and others have been changed by going into the house.
This is also a really good and harsh look at the realities of war for our soldiers overseas, and the trials they go through. The author is a veteran himself, and that's why these parts felt so authentic to read.
It took a while for the story to really grab me, which is why in the end it's a 3.5 star read for me.
Thank you netgalley and Henry Holt & Company for giving me an advanced review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
July 15, 2023
Oooh. This is one I'd love to discuss and get input from other people.
This was a horror story unlike any I've read. Much of the book is spent describing the monotony of the main character's life as a soldier in Afghanistan; this purposeful decision then gives way to a fucking wild ride that is the rest of the book. It is insanely unsettling with the militia house being an insidious entity.
I do wish a few more connections were made: like why the porcupine quills, the drawings on the wall, the dog. Besides being creepy, I didn't really understand their relation to the militia house.
If you're looking to feel unsettled, this is the horror book for you.
This was a horror story unlike any I've read. Much of the book is spent describing the monotony of the main character's life as a soldier in Afghanistan; this purposeful decision then gives way to a fucking wild ride that is the rest of the book. It is insanely unsettling with the militia house being an insidious entity.
I do wish a few more connections were made: like why the porcupine quills, the drawings on the wall, the dog. Besides being creepy, I didn't really understand their relation to the militia house.
If you're looking to feel unsettled, this is the horror book for you.
August 16, 2023
Although nothing much exciting happens in the book, there's a continuous feeling of desolation to the whole setup for which the author should be commended for maintaining it throughout the whole story.
August 3, 2023
Abandoned
January 31, 2024
Lance Corporal Loyette is deployed to a landing zone in a seeming wasteland of sand and rock deep in rural Afghanistan, where he faces the modern horrors of war: The boredom of a desert with no electricity, no showers, no good meals, and absolutely nothing to do. The responsibility of leading a unit that he struggles to get to know, made up of men who don’t really respect him as the middle manager that he is. The knowledge that his job is bullshit, that this war is bullshit, and that all he can do about it is follow orders until his deployment ends. The memory of his brother, who died after he stepped on an IED while stationed elsewhere. The guilt over following in his brother’s footsteps into the marines to run away from his failures at school and relationships at home, desperate to garner the same respect and admiration that his hero brother received from his family.
Oh and by the way there’s also this haunted house.
The titular Militia House is an abandoned soviet barracks that sticks out like a black stone in the middle of the sand. There is something about it; something unwelcoming and bleak. The rumor is that a Russian military unit was massacred there. The truth is that there is nothing inside it worth investigating. And yet, the monotony of this deployment makes it the most intriguing place Loyette and his unit have seen in months, and it draws them to it.
After Loyette and his unit go on a brief excursion to check out the house, strange things start to happen around the landing zone. Drawings seem to move on their own, soldiers start talking in their sleep, Loyette finds porcupine quills everywhere, and tensions and unease rise among the men. Loyette wants everyone to do their job and just suck it up until their deployment is over, but even he can’t help but feel the dread of the militia house, and the way it seems to be pulling them all back…
The choice of setting for a gothic horror is brilliant. The existential dread of the supernatural militia house goes hand-in-hand with the existential dread of war. Reading (or rather listening to) this felt like watching the latest A24 film. It takes its time, paints these desolate scenes, and lets the tension build and build to an incredible climax that I won’t spoil here. Check this one out.
Oh and by the way there’s also this haunted house.
The titular Militia House is an abandoned soviet barracks that sticks out like a black stone in the middle of the sand. There is something about it; something unwelcoming and bleak. The rumor is that a Russian military unit was massacred there. The truth is that there is nothing inside it worth investigating. And yet, the monotony of this deployment makes it the most intriguing place Loyette and his unit have seen in months, and it draws them to it.
After Loyette and his unit go on a brief excursion to check out the house, strange things start to happen around the landing zone. Drawings seem to move on their own, soldiers start talking in their sleep, Loyette finds porcupine quills everywhere, and tensions and unease rise among the men. Loyette wants everyone to do their job and just suck it up until their deployment is over, but even he can’t help but feel the dread of the militia house, and the way it seems to be pulling them all back…
The choice of setting for a gothic horror is brilliant. The existential dread of the supernatural militia house goes hand-in-hand with the existential dread of war. Reading (or rather listening to) this felt like watching the latest A24 film. It takes its time, paints these desolate scenes, and lets the tension build and build to an incredible climax that I won’t spoil here. Check this one out.
April 6, 2025
The Militia House by John Milas follows Corporal Loyette and a small group of Marines on deployment in Afghanistan in 2010. Milas does a fantastic job of depicting the boredom and the monotony of these Marines' job, as well as the setting and the sense of, I don't know, purposelessness? Futility? This isn't a very long book at just under 260 pages, but rather than feeling underdeveloped it instead doesn't overstay its welcome. It doesn't drag, it's not full of unnecessary descriptions or overly flowery language; we are told exactly as much as we need to know. For example, the other couple Marines Loyette is with aren't super fleshed out, but that's not for poor character development; Loyette simply doesn't know (or doesn't try to get to know) these men very well.
I honestly kept waiting for this to start to suck, because I felt like I was enjoying it too much. As a horror novel, would I say it's legitimately scary? I can't go that far. But I loved it's creeping oddness, and the feeling that things were never quite right. Something was always just slightly off enough to keep you thinking. And as it builds and builds it never gets stupid. Even as things ramp up towards the end, Milas doesn't go off the rails with the story and it works with what he's been developing until that point. Did I love the ending? Not entirely sure.
I know I just rated Steve Coll's excellent Directorate S four stars and now I'm also giving this four stars, which seems silly. These two books are obviously not on the same level, but I think my criteria for fiction and non-fiction is just a bit different. I really did enjoy The Militia House a whole lot, and would definitely give it another read. This was not just a good novel, but a great debut. I'm interested to see what Milas publishes next.
I honestly kept waiting for this to start to suck, because I felt like I was enjoying it too much. As a horror novel, would I say it's legitimately scary? I can't go that far. But I loved it's creeping oddness, and the feeling that things were never quite right. Something was always just slightly off enough to keep you thinking. And as it builds and builds it never gets stupid. Even as things ramp up towards the end, Milas doesn't go off the rails with the story and it works with what he's been developing until that point. Did I love the ending? Not entirely sure.
I know I just rated Steve Coll's excellent Directorate S four stars and now I'm also giving this four stars, which seems silly. These two books are obviously not on the same level, but I think my criteria for fiction and non-fiction is just a bit different. I really did enjoy The Militia House a whole lot, and would definitely give it another read. This was not just a good novel, but a great debut. I'm interested to see what Milas publishes next.
September 23, 2024
A sobering novel about the impacts of war on young enlisted women and men with a light supernatural spin.
For Corp. Alex Loyette and his men, the end of their tour in Afghanistan is so close they can taste it. They are tasked to work the LZ (landing zone) in their time remaining. It is boring work where they are seen as grunts from the other military personnel. With time to kill, one of the members speaks of a militia house just outside their wire. It is rumoured to be a site where a former Russian team was slaughtered back in the late 1980s. Though ordinarily restricted to leave their perimeter, they convince a Staff Sergeant to allow them to explore it. The team experiences strange goings-on in the house: weird smells, loss of time, strange drawings etc. It’s once they leave the house that things become troubling for the team, especially for Alex.
The supernatural is essentially limited to this one excursion as the rest of the story unfolds in a kind of dream sequence where Alex, and as a default the reader, has trouble making sense of what’s real and what isn’t. I interpreted this as the result of a soldier’s psyche being involved in a war they don’t understand, intermixed with feelings of isolation, being away from home and the spectre of dying hovering around them at all times. The death of his brother in Iraq also contributes heavily to the disintegration Alex’s mental state. What we witness in Alex is the inability to decipher what is real and what isn’t, fear from menace, and mind from world. As reader, we embark in these delusions with Alex and it makes for quite a compelling read.
The author is a veteran Marine who spent time in Afghanistan, and so, adroitly lends a keen insight in the lives of soldiers, from the horrors of war to the mundaneness. Ultimately, we get immersed in Alex’s journey and are left to decipher whether the accounts are true or whether this is all a metaphor about a soldier’s regrets, psyche or PTSD.
War is hell.
For Corp. Alex Loyette and his men, the end of their tour in Afghanistan is so close they can taste it. They are tasked to work the LZ (landing zone) in their time remaining. It is boring work where they are seen as grunts from the other military personnel. With time to kill, one of the members speaks of a militia house just outside their wire. It is rumoured to be a site where a former Russian team was slaughtered back in the late 1980s. Though ordinarily restricted to leave their perimeter, they convince a Staff Sergeant to allow them to explore it. The team experiences strange goings-on in the house: weird smells, loss of time, strange drawings etc. It’s once they leave the house that things become troubling for the team, especially for Alex.
The supernatural is essentially limited to this one excursion as the rest of the story unfolds in a kind of dream sequence where Alex, and as a default the reader, has trouble making sense of what’s real and what isn’t. I interpreted this as the result of a soldier’s psyche being involved in a war they don’t understand, intermixed with feelings of isolation, being away from home and the spectre of dying hovering around them at all times. The death of his brother in Iraq also contributes heavily to the disintegration Alex’s mental state. What we witness in Alex is the inability to decipher what is real and what isn’t, fear from menace, and mind from world. As reader, we embark in these delusions with Alex and it makes for quite a compelling read.
The author is a veteran Marine who spent time in Afghanistan, and so, adroitly lends a keen insight in the lives of soldiers, from the horrors of war to the mundaneness. Ultimately, we get immersed in Alex’s journey and are left to decipher whether the accounts are true or whether this is all a metaphor about a soldier’s regrets, psyche or PTSD.
War is hell.
August 22, 2023
Corporal Loyette and his unit are finishing up their deployment at a new base in Kajaki, Afghanistan. Their duties include loading and unloading cargo with their days filled with boredom and dread. They were told the history of the old barracks just off base, a Soviet-era militia house allegedly haunted. Corporal Loyette and his men don't need much convincing to go take a look for themselves, with the militia house being just outside the wire. The days following their adventure, they try to forget the strange sights and sounds from the house, but something is not right. Convinced that the strain of war is playing tricks on them, Loyette is determined to ignore their feelings.
The Militia House is creepy, and you can feel it from the start. Who knew porcupines could be so sinister? I found this book to be unique and creative and knowing a little military language was helpful for me to follow along. I also like that this was written by a veteran, and I can imagine that those in the military or those who were in the military would enjoy its familiarity and enjoy reading it and getting a little scared. I wanted to give it all the stars, but I was left with some unanswered questions. Overall, I enjoyed the read and I plan to keep it on my forever shelves. If you're looking for something different to read and want to get a little spooked out, give this one a shot!
Happy reading.
The Militia House is creepy, and you can feel it from the start. Who knew porcupines could be so sinister? I found this book to be unique and creative and knowing a little military language was helpful for me to follow along. I also like that this was written by a veteran, and I can imagine that those in the military or those who were in the military would enjoy its familiarity and enjoy reading it and getting a little scared. I wanted to give it all the stars, but I was left with some unanswered questions. Overall, I enjoyed the read and I plan to keep it on my forever shelves. If you're looking for something different to read and want to get a little spooked out, give this one a shot!
Happy reading.
October 14, 2023
We hardly know anything. And we never really learned why we're still here after so many years, like why haven't we gotten Osama yet? No one has ever answered for that, because answering for that doesn't change things from our perspective. Our job is to do what we're told. No one brought us here to think or learn.
The year is 2010, and Corporal Alex Loyette and his crew of Marines have just arrived in Kajaki, Afghanistan, to finish up their deployment on a new base. When they arrive, they immediately notice the blocky, abandoned barracks off-base: a Soviet-era militia house that the British soldiers they are there to relieve tell them has a dark history, and is rumored to be haunted. Eager for a break from their monotonous duties (loading and unloading cargo from helicopters), Loyette and his crew decide to sneak off-base and explore the militia house.
What should be an exciting mid-day diversion from their dull responsibilities turns into something much more unsettling, because after returning from their jaunt to the militia house, Loyette and his men begin experiencing strange events: nightmares, hallucinations, a mounting sense of unease they can't escape. Loyette tries to write it all off as the stress of active duty, but he can't shake the feeling that the militia house isn't done with them yet.
John Milas draws on his lived experiences as a Marine who served in Afghanistan to immerse the reader in the life of a soldier: the monotony and tedium, the psychological and emotional toll, the sense of isolation and the lack of autonomy. He spends the first two-thirds of the book exploring the drudgery of an active-duty soldier's days, letting us get to know Loyette intimately. We learn about his past, his struggles both in his private life and during his time with the Marines, the events and people that have made him into the hardened, hopeless, seemingly unfeeling man he is. The Militia House reads like Loyette's diary -- meaning that parts of it are a bit boring, but also that it is a fascinating, deeply psychological character study.
The last third of the book is absolutely stellar, as the horror that has been quietly and subtly building the entire time is unleashed in a conclusion that I am still thinking about, more than a week after I finished reading the book. It's ambiguous and bleak and so perfectly exemplifies the futility, trauma, and brutality of modern warfare and its effects on those who serve.
Military fiction is not typically a genre that interests me. I picked this up because it sounded like a haunted house story, and I love those. And well, it is a story about ghosts, and about being haunted -- just not the kind I expected. The Militia House may not be a typical ghost story, but it will haunt me all the same. 3.5 stars rounded up.
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