The story begins with an FBI agent breaking into a laboratory in an attempt to gather evidence that the company running it is modifying crop seeds in such a way that when introduced into the food chain, they will change the genetic make up of the human population on earth. He dies, horribly, during this failed attempt and we discover that he has gone rogue from the Agency.
His friend also an Agent, while banned from getting involved because of his closeness to the murdered agent, begins to investigate off the books and the story develops into one of frightening terror.
He discovers that the 'people' behind the modified crop seeds are not in fact human and while we do not find out whether they are 'alien' from another planet or whether they are as indigenous to earth as we are, we discover that the seeds have been modified in such a way that once introduced they will rewrite OUR DNA and we will turn into them. To do this, they have to ensure that their seed replaces the normal food seed that is planted around the world and that the seed banks, containing samples of every food and plant seed that currently grows on the planet and that are housed around the world are destroyed.
The EDF, a group who have been set up and are based in an old ICBM base in California are leading the fight to stop, 'The Harvesters' as we discover the name given to the protagonists of this book and who are vile shape shifting creatures that can take human form . Hicks borrows slightly from 'The Termintor' in that cats are the only ones able to detect 'The Harvesters' either in their normal or human forms and we find that they play a big part in the story warning the heroes and us when The Harvestors are about to make an appearance.
The action is set in USA but the battle moves to Norway as the only surviving 'seed bank' comes under attack, after all the others around the world are destroyed. Of course the evil plan will only work if The Harvesters have human conspirators and when the President is blown up The vice President is sworn in and we discover that he is a conspirator who says, " I know there is a special place in Hell reserved for me for what I've done". And to discover what would make a US President have his own place reserved in Hell, you will have to read the book.
Hicks gave us his spectacular and futuristic Human vs Alien space opera with the In Her Name series which once started you cannot put down. In Season of The Harvest he has brought us back into the here and now and gives us a sight of what could be. As he points out in his notes at the end of the novel, the governance and development of GMO's seems to be wholly unregulated in the USA and they do not need, like Europeans, to put it on the food packets, informing American that they may be consuming something that is not as natural as some of us would like or believe that our food is au natural, so all in all an excellent earth bound and contemporary subject matter that turned out to be a explosive book to read. I give it 5 stars out of 5
Best Wishes
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