The Seeds of Death

"You despatched the seeds, Fewsham. In so doing, you destroyed your entire species."

Writer: Terrance Dicks

Format: Novel

Released: December 1986

Series: Target 112

Featuring: Second Doctor, Jamie, Zoe

Synopsis

Returning to Earth in the 21st century, the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe immediately find themselves caught in the midst of a crisis. T-Mat – a form of instantaneous transportation essential to the smooth running of life on Earth – is going disastrously wrong. 

The Doctor discovers that the T-Mat Base on the Moon has been taken over by a group of Ice Warriors, led by the villainous Slaar. Their home a desolate and dying planet, the Martian invaders see Earth as a world ripe for conquest. 

But before they can colonise Earth they must dramatically alter its atmosphere. And so they unleash the Seeds of Death...

Verdict

The Seeds of Death was an outstanding novelisation of one of my very favourite television serials! I have loved this story ever since first purchasing the DVD based on the image of an Ice Warrior on the back, so to revisit here in prose was a sheer delight. The pace was frantic and it really didn't feel like six parts were crammed into 150 pages which is a big positive. One thing that struck me in the novelisation form of reading was just how much death occurred! The title certainly did live up to its name and I think the Ice Warriors were at their ruthless best with Slaar leading the way. It was good to establish some of the Ice Warrior hierarchy with their clearly just being normal guards and then Slaar leading the mission but also answering to the Grand Marshall. That was really good and this was an incredibly strong second appearance for the Martians. I thought the way the book started with a whole chapter establishing T-Mat and the situation on Earth in the time we were in was excellent, although I'll be quite amazed if any kind of system like the one on show here will be active within the next eighty years. The idea of just going from Stockholm to New York in a matter of seconds is the dream. I loved the way the TARDIS arrived in Eldred's private museum and the Doctor and Zoe genuinely being interested in everything on show was a delight. The way things moved from having them arriving and questioned to manning a rocket to the Moon was fantastic and really made for an entertaining story. I liked the Ice Warriors invading the Moon through the T-Mat control base and the way they manipulated Fewsham into despatching their seeds all over the planet in key strategic and winter cities was terrific. You could hardly blame him for his actions in my opinion and his outburst to Zoe regarding everything that had happened around him was perfectly warranted. I thought it was very courageous of him to then lie about the delay switch and send everyone back to Earth whilst he delayed the Ice Warriors to make amends for his actions. I thought Jamie had quite a fun little story and Dicks does a good job of writing in Scottish lingo to bring the character to life. He was a little out of place with all of the science in this one, but the simplicity in the way he delivered the line about needn't worrying about the Sun because of their three days of food supply was excellent. Despite the global scale of the threat, I thought the story centring around just a few key locations like the Moonbase, the private museum and the weather control bureau was very impressive. It kept things compact which I liked. The plan of the Ice Warriors to use the seeds to starve the Earth of its oxygen and change the atmosphere to something akin to Mars was fantastic and their time of striking when humanity was solely reliant on T-Mat was superb. I am a huge fan of the plot, even if the Ice Warriors are the ones to initially put the system out of action. Slaar leads them well and the Doctor and Jamie recognising them as the culprits was very good. I thought Miss Kelly and Radnor were also great characters and the latter realising the importance of the former when it came to the T-Mat systems was wonderful. The Doctor going to the Moon to disable Slaar's homing signal for the remaining Ice Warriors arrival with the Grand Marshall was bold and the way he counters Slaar's remarks about killing them by saying they tried to kill an entire planet was superb. I really loved that line. It was a fitting end to what was a quite brilliant read. Great characterisation, excellent enemies and a really solid plot. Overall, sheer brilliance!

Rating: 10/10