Conclave of Har Horus Heresy Book Review: Praetorian of Dorn by John French

It seems to have been an age but finally the action in the Horus Heresy has reached Sol. Nearly 50 books in and we are finally approaching  the end phase, the pieces are moving into position and some minor retcons aside we are ready for the final battle. But while we have been treated to tales aplenty featuring the Shattered Legions and the other legions slowly making their way to Terra to defend the Emperor (though Guilliman looks a bit suspect at the moment – surely he could have made it back too?, After all Sangunius has to depart so why does the Avenging Son not go with him?) we still have not seen much of what is happening back on Holy Terra itself.

To be fair this is probably because most of it has been destroying and rebuilding the Homeworld in preparation for Horus’s final assault and some shorts aside that would not make for particularly exciting reading. Nonetheless Dorn and his Legion are a big part of the closing stages of the Horus Heresy and it seems only right that we check in on them....

Just as they are attacked from within by a small force of Alpha Legion operatives.

Yep, those sneaky sons of Alpharius strike at Holy Terra itself. That said, it’s less of an actual attack and more of a ‘look what we could do if we wanted to’ designed to distract Dorn. And it works, although Dorn himself doesn’t get too involved in the hunt for the Alpha Legion and instead assigns Archamus his chief Huscarl ‘the Praetorian of Dorn’ to take whatever resources he needs and hunt down the traitor elements wherever in the solar system they may be.  Of course this is the Alpha Legion that we are talking about and they never make things that simple.

The narrative switches repeatedly between the hunters and the hunted, showing the hunters attempts to track down their quarry even as we see the traitors going about their objectives.  Archamus puts together his team to carry out his Primarchs orders and capture the elusive Alpha Legion operatives and this is where the majority of the book focuses although there are a few flashbacks for the Archamus and the lead Alpha Legionnaire Silonius that add a little exposition and character development suggesting, as always for the Alpha Legion that all is not as it seems.

In fact intrigue and mystery, as you might expect, is a large part of the book with the side effect that the reader can feel a little out of the loop as leaps in reasoning and logic are made that we just cannot quite rationalise. It can make the book a little hard to follow as events occur seemingly with little rhyme or reason. This can be a little jarring and does unfortunately detract from the reading experience, though you are never left completely lost sometimes things can be just a little too vague.

That said, I really do enjoy John French’s writing, he has a way with words that I imagine a sculptor has with clay and at times his writing borders on the romantic such is the elegance that he uses in his prose. In many ways it almost has a classical element to it, avoiding the ponderous overly descriptive format that many authors can fall into the trap of using whilst simultaneously not making the text so basic that it becomes mindless bolter porn.

The book also does a decent job on highlighting two legions which have had scant attention paid to them over the course of the Heresy, whilst by no means as neglected as some, it’s nice to see the fists and Alpha Legion get some time in the spotlight and some good work is done on them here.

However, even though there are some excellent highlights and very important events at the back end of the book (these are spoiler free reviews so I won’t say what, even though most people probably know) It’s hard to say that Praetorian of Dorn is an essential read. Certainly it feels like the narrative could have done with a little more tightening and refining as the path the story takes is at times bumpy and uneven. It’s a shame because if as much skill had been applied to construction of the tale itself as to the craft of the text and writing we could have been looking at a classic.

In the end though, despite some decent characterisation and great action this is just another filler book, and whilst it will certainly fit in the upper half of the series in terms of quality it does come across as little more than another diversion, another obstacle placed between us and the main event. Horus’s long awaited assault on Terra and confrontation with the Emperor.