Mel is standing on her head when first seen. Her stroppy attitude when offered a jelly baby makes the Doctor reflect that he never had an older sister.
The little girl, Stellar, has a best friend back at home called Milli-mind. It's made clear that the people in the Freezer Centre have stopped there on space journeys to stock up with food. It doesn't make it that much more realistic, but it's better than the screen version where it just seems like there's a contemporary supermarket in space for no good reason.
The Iceworld cafe is run by a man named Eisenstein, not Anderson. Ian Briggs wants to give the place more the ambience of the Mos Eisley cantina than the Children's BBC atmosphere shown on screen. Amongst the extra lines given to Glitz is one where, having failed to get the Doctor to help him get the hundred crowns, he appeals to Mel: 'think of the adventures we had together...'
The Doctor is able to correct Mel's pronunciation of 'Loch Ness' because he has an 'authentic Scottish accent' in this incarnation. I know that might sound like stating the obvious but it was never explicitly referred to on screen.
The 'real McCoy' joke is not used.
Ace doesn't tip a second milkshake over Eisenstein. Amongst the mess observed by Mel in her bedroom are many discarded items of underwear. The story of the explosion in the school art room ends with the first years' pottery pigs all over the sports field.
At the Singing Trees, Glitz refers to crowns and not grotzits when he sees the valuable crystals. There's an extra scene where he gets pinned under a block of ice and the Doctor saves his life, causing him to comment that the Doctor is an 'odd fish'. IB describes the Doctor, by the way, as having a peculiar face.
Ace resists Kane's temptation because she suddenly sees him as telling her to do as she's told, just like her parents and teachers did.
Glitz finds the Ice Garden and realises it's functioning as a planetarium.
The Doctor's actions at the ice cliff are carefully explained: he wants to climb down because that's the only way forwards into the tunnels. He hangs off his umbrella because the cracks in the ice that he's using for holds are too far apart, and the umbrella extends his reach.
Ace and Mel's climb down the cliff is much expanded. They use climbing gear, and there's this bizarre conversation:
'I think you've got that harness on upside-down. I think those tight straps are supposed to go between your legs.'
Ace looked down, and giggled. 'It's a good job I'm not a boy!' she laughed. Mel smiled - and then she began to laugh as well. This wasn't going to be a bit like they always showed it on telly!
One of Ace's Nitro-9 canisters springs a leak on the way down, and Mel saves her. Much bonding results. This comes to mind later on, when Ace and Mel hide from the undead crewmembers in a crack in the ice (not under some stairs):
She held Mel tight in the darkness. Her cheek was pressed against Mel's. She could feel her gentle breathing.
Bazin and McLuhan (the ANT-hunting soldiers) think and are described in traditional NA style - all lock-and-load and weapon specifications. I never find this impressive when it crops up in the newer Targets, I prefer the tea-and-grumbling style of soldiering of the UNIT era. (Which, significantly, was written by people who had fought real wars).
During the argument between Glitz and Ace about who's going to the Nosferatu to get the explosive, we're told that 'he always had trouble with feminists - usually because they were right and he was wrong.' It sounds like Glitz is thinking that but that doesn't make sense. Anyway, there's an extra bit where Ace and Mel disobediently follow him and find him waiting round a corner looking cross, so they go back and play I-spy.
All the docked spaceships have people crowding onto them to escape Kane's mercenaries, and he blows all of them up.
Stellar's mother orders Glitz to start looking for her child.
At the point where Ace takes the short-cut to her quarters, there's graffiti on the wall saying ACE 4 WAYNE (the book has a picture, very unusual for a late Target). Wayne, she explains, is her soft toy dog. She actually reaches her quarters here, only to be dragged away by Kane.
Stellar encounters Kane getting out of his fridge. She has Teddy tells him that he's sorry for disturbing him. Kane ignores Teddy and Stellar. When she takes Teddy out of the fridge later, she drops him and he shatters into bits, making her cry. Poignantly, the tears turn into ice crystals before they hit the floor.
Glitz takes the Nitro-9 from Ace's room and uses it to wire up the cryogenics chamber. The Doctor and Mel meet him here. She hitches up her skirt to climb over the detonator wires - on screen she's wearing trousers. The remaining mercenaries attack: although the Nitro won't explode, Glitz desperately throws Ace's toy dog Wayne (which he finds in her holdall) at them, and being full of nitroglycerin, it explodes.
There's no tannoy announcement from 'Captain Glitz'.
This Target does make the story clearer, but this time that still wasn't enough to make me enjoy it. Glitz is the best thing in it in either version.
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