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Teases and prods the reader up a plethora of literary blind alleys before hauling them screaming towards its final, thrilling destination.

When I first sussed out that the hitchers - or vodsels - were going to be farmed for meat, the novel felt very much like Never Let Me Go. But not for long. When it was mentioned that Isserley's body had been changed and she dared not look 'down below', I wondered what had happened to her. I remember one of the hitchers noting her long, thin, scarred hands and eyes like 'illuminated microscope slides of some exotic bacterial culture.' It was then I wondered if she wasn't just foreign but some kind of animal. At first I thought she was Scandinavian, but later it turned out she was some kind of dog like animal referred to as a human being in her culture. Then Amlis Vess arrived in a cargo ship which I thought was weird. Esswiss had been painting the steading that was hiding the ship and he'd finished by the time Isserley returned from a day's work. How big was this blummin ship and how the heck did they haul it into the steading?...unless of course it was a **spaceship** oOOoooh It was never made clear, but I gathered they were aliens. The concept made the novel more exciting and the thought of it actually happening made my skin crawl.

At first I thought the ending was a bit weak, but now I've had time to think about it, it was fitting for Isserley. She wanted to be free - free from pain and free from her dreary life - but she didn't want to return to her native world. She could be free in death. Even though I wanted the novel to carry on. I wanted people to find out about them, see the uproar in the media, but that would have been a different story.

I thought Faber's concept of a vodsel as cattle was done exceptionally well. I almost forgot they were human beings and easily pictured the men as farm animals. The story wasn't really about us - it was about Isserley's race and how they perceive us. It's scary to think it might just happen. You never know! It was brilliant how animals became humans and we turned into cattle. There's got to be an Animal Farm type message in there

Lastly, has anyone ever encountered that many hitchikers out and about? I've only ever seen a handful in my lifetime, I'm sure. I never see them these days. But there seemed to be hitchers everywhere on the A9 in the book.

a pair of big alien eyes staring right at me. Like microscope slides of some exotic culture

defended our world to the hitcher she thought was Pennington Studio. I felt sorry for her that she'd been so deformed to save her having to work in the estates (I thought Faber was on about some rough housing estate at first) and do demeaning work, but was in a lot of pain (I could really imagine the agony she was in) and lonely and hadn't come to terms with what had been done to her. She might have escaped the estates, but she still ended up doing crap work, albeit in a much more beautiful environment.

I'm aware of how beautiful our world is, but reading this novel made me appreciate it all the more.

The book was definitely a book about character development rather than a sci fi novel with all the scientific details you'd expect. I'm glad Faber didn't give us too much info about the world they come from and left it to our imaginations.

Oh there was one more bit I thought was ironic. I gathered Isserley wasn't human as such and was itching to know where she was from, how she differed to us etc., when on page 174 I thought I was going to be enlightened...only to discover I didn't understand the diction:

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in the end, though, vodsels couldn't do any of the things that really defined a human being. They couldn't siuwil, they couldn't mesnishtil, they had no concept of slan. etc.

It made me smile that the difference between us and the aliens was being explained but I didn't understand any of it

It's easy to see the polluted world that Isserley came from as being earth in the future and why she would do anything she could be escape the fate she would have suffered if she had stayed. It's also hard to condemn her part in the farming. Even though she spoke to vodsels and know they were intelligent and lived in families and built homes, cars etc and where technologically advanced (but not as much as her race) she still saw them as animals, much the same way that the slave traders saw the men and woman they traded. Slave traders did it for money, Isserley to save her own life.

I was surprised that her race choose to farm vodsels and not the sheep and cows. I know our animals may have resembled them slightly and it may have been psychological, but it would have been easier and less risky to round up a few sheep than risk taking large numbers of vodsels. I don't know what human (vodsel) meat is like but it can't be too different from other animals. But then the point of the story seems to be that we do this to animals how would we feel it the tables were turned and we became the hunted.

My OH heard a radio programme where the speaker said that in 10 years we would all be vegetarian as by then we would understand what animals thought and felt, so may be this book is putting this point across.
Like you SB I wanted the book to go on further at the end. It would have been interesting if Isserley had been taken to hospital and examined by the doctors. Would that have ended the meat trade or would the traders have waged war on us with there advance technology and made the earth into one giant farm? Even so kidnapping on this scale couldn't have continued much longer with out even dim witted earthlings realiseing that something untoward was happening.

Another thing that puzzled me was that Isserley and her fellow 'humans' ate food at tables and slept in beds etc but didn't use a toilet! Did they not need to or did they just squat anywhere?

It didn't occur to me that their planet was how ours could be in the future, but see it plainly now you've pointed it out. It seemed such a dark, toxic and stifling place. I could picture Amlis's amazement when he first saw the sea and snow. Our planet is beautiful and we should appreciate it more. I could sense Isserley loved nature too so when she came across a vodsels saying 'life is (Bleep!)', I can understand why they saw them as dumb animals

(Btw - I read a bit about Faber. He was brought up in the city in Australia but now lives in rural Scotland. It was when he moved there that he appreciated nature more. He says Scotland is breathtakingly beautiful, which of course it is. So there must be something in there about the different worlds he's experienced in his lifetime.)

Before I worked out that Isserley was an animal, I couldn't work out why she respected sheep so much and tried to communicate with them. Then I understood. Apparently Faber pictured them as part cat, dog and llama! I can therefore appreciate that to butcher a sheep would have been a bit too close to home for the 'aliens'. A bit like cannibalism for them perhaps.

I loved your reference to the way people were traded as slaves, BF. It's an excellent comparison. Have you read Property? It's a good read in that it gets across exactly how white people in America in the 1800s perceived black people. I recommend it.

Back to Under The Skin, I can totally understand why they saw us as animals. It was narrated so you didn't get emotionally involved with any human characters and so well written I could easily picture the people in the novel as farm animals too. It's written so you get involved with Isserley - I did feel for her.

• Although the story is written in the third person, we see things mainly from Isserley’s viewpoint. How did your feelings about Isserley change as the novel unfolded? I wanted to know more about her right from the start and never really felt repelled by her. By the end of the book I felt really sorry for her and could understand why she had done the things she did

• Despite the grim subject matter, Michel Faber manages to bring humour into the novel. Did you feel that this was appropriate? Yes, I think there is humour in most things. Isserley's attempt at the word Mercy doing the traumatic rape scene and the descriptions of the fattened Vodsels brought a small guilty smile, and the rapist got his comeuppance in the end.
• Do you think that the Scottish setting is important for this story? Would it work as well in any other settings? I think it would have been harder to set the story anywhere else. Scotland's remoteness and beauty was ideal. The contrast between Scotland and the estates makes it easier to empathise with Isserly.
• Did you find the ending satisfactory? Does the story work as an allegory? Is it appropriate for writers to use extreme examples to make a point? Yes I did in a way. Not sure how else it could have ended. It was a better option for Isserley than going back home and I think her emerging conscience's about what she was doing would have made it hard for her to carry on. I think it's fine for writers to using extreme measures sometimes.
• How well do you think that the mix of writing genres works? In this case it worked well and helped to keep your interest .

Isn't it strange how books effect people in different ways? This book really got to me in a way that Never Let Me Go didn't. The problem I had with Never Let Me Go was that I couldn't believe that such large scale 'farming' could go on without a wide scale condemnation from most of the public. The children in the book while being sort of kept separate weren't exactly kept hidden. But I am beginning to think that I may have missed the point of that book.

thought Isserly was a moving,thoughtful character and felt nothing but sympathy towards her.don't remember all the details but remember feeling as though we had discovered that the animals we farmed were capable of complex emotion and thought processes-would this alter our perspective or would some of us still eat meat?i think its a case of self-denial,we don't think about where the meat has come from...vicky for example will not eat anything unless off the bone and will not eat anything that rembles what it came from-hence why she would never eat whole dover sole for example or chicken wings etc...that said she STILL eats meat!!!

I thought the ending of this novel was appropiate though it did finish suddenly i thought this worked.simply because all through the course of the novel Isserly lived in pain both mental and physical as she tried to come to terms with her role in life.in the end she kind of found peace and release through death which was the only outcome for her to be able to find happiness.their culture seemed harsh,extreme and very controlling-it made me appreciate the freedom and beauty of our existence that i too often take for granted-has anyone else noticed how may of the books we are choosing(often unintentionally) have some kind of moral message-colour purple(though i didn't enjoy it),never let me go,kevin,kite-runner and now this.....is this a deliberate pattern,i don't think so as many of you were not aware of uts's true nature.
think it speaks volume about this book group and the kind of people we are!!

I tried to imagine how UTS could be filmed when I had a sudden flash of inspiration . Wouldn't it be great if the film started at the end, the car crash scene, only Isserley doesn't blow up the car, she dies in the ambulance on the way to A&E, say. Then the characters in the film would discover she's an alien and the film would be about them piecing together what she's doing here, why she's had ops to look human etc. until eventually they discover Ablach farm. You get the picture. If you hadn't read Under The Skin it would make an exciting motion picture And it would satisfy my need to know how we would react to something like this going on. There could be flashbacks so we get to know Isserley. How cool would that be? If there are any Hollywood film directors reading this, my number is...

I haven't quite collected my thoughts on this but will ramble on nevertheless. I keep on asking myself now if I was totally blown away by the subject matter and if the writing style had little to do with my positive reaction? However, on reflection, I think that Faber is a very subtle writer as he managed to make me feel great empathy for a mutilated dog like creature who hunted male hitchhikers. (Wasn't there a film Hiker? with Rutger Hauer years ago which was equally creepy?) It's one of those books that, once the secret is given away, you won't really feel like re-reading but that doesn't mean that it isn't extremely powerful.

If I'm totally honest, my kneejerk reaction was to go off meat (for a while..) I, like Glynis and Vicki, have a problem with anything ressembling the original animal. The part where Isserley witnesses the stunning of a vodsel and its (well it seemed dehumanised for me) throat being cut made me feel rather guilty about meat eating. During that scene, when she was obviously traumatised by the attempted rape by that grotesque man, I thought she was going to do the castration herself as some sort of revenge.

I had a very strong image of the space ship but had some difficulty suspending my disbelief to imagine these panther like creatures (couldn't help thinking of Amlis like Bagheera (sp) in the Jungle Book!!

I really enjoyed this book - reminded me a bit of the Crying Game, the only reason being that once the secret is out, you don't really want to see it/read it again. Having said that, at times it seemed to be unrolling in my ahead like a movie and am surprised that it hasn't been translated to the big screen - maybe they haven't seen your proposed screenplay yet, Glynis!