Conclave of Har Book Review: Visions of Heresy

So, as the Horus Heresy novel series finally starts to wind down after over 50 novels, a Third Edition of Visions of Heresy has been released.

Naturally I had to buy it, and review it. It's expected of me right? I had meant to do the same back when  I bought the second edition, comparing it to the first. It's amazing to think that was five years ago now.

That's a lot of Heresy right there...

The First Edition was released back in 2007 as Horus Heresy Collected Visions and was, as it's title suggests a collection of four separate books. By and large, the artwork was taken from the Horus Heresy CCG, meaning that the illustrations were of variable quality. Alongside these were a number of John Blanche pieces. As these were a direct compilation of the four smaller volumes it also lacked  in structure, though Alan Merrett's writing has largely remained unchanged. One thing i DID really like about the early volumes was the presentation of the books. The page colours and the layout really made it look like an old venerable tome, something that has been lost with later editions.

The styling of the collected visions was more in keeping with the black leather Forge World books. 

Of course, there was a second edition, released in 2013. This made a few major changes. One was to structure the book more chronologically and into separate theartres of War, Prospero, Calth, Istvaan and so on. There were some additions to the text and some new artwork was added, though a large portion of the artwork was still made up of the CCG illustrations so there was still the odd naff piece, or at least the odd piece that didn't hold up so well at a bigger scale.

2013: New and improved Heresy, but lacking that stylistic flare I liked so much.

Mainly the changes were confined to expanded areas of the lore, particularly those that had been embellished by recent novellas and novels. The presentation was also a lot cleaner with white background and a more unified stylistic direction. Neil Roberts stunning book covers had also started to feature, not least his magnificent cover portraying the Emperor battling Horus. The book format had also been changed to match the myriad novels and novellas available at this point.

2018: Less effects on the cover, but what about inside?

So it is, a full 5 years later, that we have the Third Edition. By and large the tale of the Heresy is done now, with the end in sight in the form of 'the buried dagger' of course this isn't quite the end. There is still The Seige of Terra to come, made it's own series by the High Lords of Terra. Still, this is the end of the Heresy as we know it, with no further Novellas and Time being called at 54 books.

Those extra 55 pages make for a noticeably thicker tome. 

And it is in the latter stages of the heresy that you will find the most change in this new edition. Indeed, you might be forgiven for thinking that you had made a horrible mistake as you leaf through the first portion of the book for you will notice that an AWFUL lot of it is the same.  In fact apart from the Neil Roberts artwork that is  generously inserted in a much more complete fashion you could be forgiven for thinking that you have wasted your money on little more than a clone. After all, the text is more or less word for word and although a couple of pictures are shuffled here and there, a lot of pages are IDENTICAL.

Many of the pages are identical.

This is pretty much the case sadly, up until you get past Istvaan,V. Basically, thinking of The Horus Heresy in the chronological fashion in which it has been published and considering that Visions of Heresy is effectively a chronological summary OF the Heresy, just with a LOT more pictures... we'll I'm sure you can see what I'm getting at here.

The existing Neil Roberts pieces are in exactly the same format 

Put bluntly if it hasn't been covered in the last five years in a novel then it hasn't changed here. Ergo the only new material here is from subject matter covering the last dozen or so novels. Even some of this is expanded rather than brand new, such as Imperium Secundus. Other excerpts are brand new such as The Shard of Magnus, Corvus Corax and the Weregeld, Tallarn, The War of the Solar System, and Wolfsbane. Overall you will find that ALL the new content is in the back end of the book. You'll be looking at pretty much page 290 and the section called Redmarked before you find any real new text.

The changes start at the end of the Calth section with 'Redmarked'

Of course, page 290 in the previous edition was much closer to the end of the volume. The new book is 50 pages longer than it's predecessor. For example Imperium Secundus is page 317 in the 2013 edition and Page 342 in this new version. Of course, as I have already said, at this stage most of the difference is artwork.

This section on Tallarn is all new

So the meat of the new material is in the last third of the book rom pages 300 to 400. This is where you will find the real meat of the change, up to a point. Of course, the Heresy isn't QUITE over yet and the most recent addition that I could see was the War for Beta-Garmon, subject of the most recent novel Titandeath. That's really not bad, but it does rather suggest that there will be a fourth edition once the 'Seige of Terra' finishes, probably in another four years time. That said, it's already a beast of a book so we could just as easily see a brand new separate art book on the Seige published instead.

Another new section, focusing on the end of Corax's journey.

In Summary: Visions of Heresy, Updated Edition IS the ultimate version of this mighty art book and as up to date as you could possibly hope for. However, the amount of new material is not expansive, being limited to the rear third of the book and Neil Roberts artwork aside, probably amounting to about two dozen pages (presumably the material written by Guy Hayley). Thankfully the addition of the Roberts book covers has allowed a few of the more egregious CCG originating illustrations to be done away with and although a lot remain, the vast majority of those that were a bit naff have been removed or at least reduced in prominence. So overall you are looking at more of a version 2.5 rather than 3. Not to say that it isn't worth your time, the foreboding feeling I had had leafing through
numerous identical pages had thoroughly dissipated by the time I had got to the end of the book.

One of the expanded sections, courtesy of Master of Mankind. 

This new edition does render the its predecessor completely redundant but the original collected volumes is different enough to escape this fate. Therefore this new updated edition is an absolute must buy if you only own the original collected volume.

An example of the later section changes, with the CCG removed and text expanded, 

though the changes are minor as this is the final battle. 

Should you already possess the 2013 Visions of Heresy then my own personal opinion is that this one IS updated enough to warrant a purchase particularly if you are a big fan of Neil Roberts art (I have several signed prints). However, you may want to make your own judgment on whether or not you want to shell out for this new updated edition based upon how much those additional 50 pages mean to you.