Under the Skin in The Roundtable

Apr 13, 2025 Henk rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: owned, 2025-priority-list

Alienating, daring, weird and philosophical. They don't write debuts like this anymore, very impressive how ambitious, and for lack of a better word, weird, Faber manages to get here while not losing a "human" heart to the story
We are all the same underneath the skin

Under the Skin is a singular novel, documenting the work of Isserly, who is on the lookout for muscular male hitchhikers. These hitchhikers, dubbed Vodsels, very near to the Dutch word for food, endure a fate that raises questions on ...more

29 likes · Like · see review

Jul 07, 2017 El rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fictiony, 1001-books-list, 21st-centurylit

I seem to be having this issue a lot lately where I am reading other books by authors whose first book I read by them amazed me to almost-tears, and then the next one I read by them is all "Meh".

My coworker borrowed this from me last week because someone else in our office is reading something else by Faber (hi, welcome to our world), and when I asked her what she thought of it when she returned to me, there was a lot of frowning and an inability to verbalize her thoughts. "It was weird" was all I seem to be having this issue a lot lately where I am reading other books by authors whose first book I read by them amazed me to almost-tears, and then the next one I read by them is all "Meh".

My coworker borrowed this from me last week because someone else in our office is reading something else by Faber (hi, welcome to our world), and when I asked her what she thought of it when she returned to me, there was a lot of frowning and an inability to verbalize her thoughts. "It was weird" was all she was able to get out. I could tell that she didn't mean that in a good way, so of course I had to read it right away to see what it was she didn't like about it, or what was giving her difficulty. And then I remembered that my mom was the one who sent this to me, and I believe the attached note was something like "This was weird, let me know what you think."

And now I'm sitting here, sort of frowning myself, not quite sure what to say.

I absolutely loved Faber's The Crimson Petal and the White. I have been looking forward to reading this because a) Crimson Petal, b) movie adaptation, and c) I love when authors write completely different sorts of things. This has, for all intents and purposes, everything that I should love. But I didn't.

I didn't dislike it either. It's well-written - Faber is truly an incredible writer, if these two books can be my sole example. It's interesting - I didn't fully understand all of what was happening, but I get it: (view spoiler)

Isserly is an intriguing character. Because I already know who plays her in the movie, I had trouble removing her face from my mind... though it also is, I believe, perfect casting. I look forward to seeing the movie to see if I can get a better sense of the where and the what Isserly does with these men she picks up hitchhiking. The other extraterrestrials she interacts with have left me feeling a little fuzzy as well, but I was invested in the story anyway, even though I didn't have that great of a grasp on what sort of craziness Faber was unfolding before me.

I'm fairly certain I liked this, but didn't love it. I do love that this was Faber's debut novel and he didn't automatically get pigeonholed as being a science fiction writer, and that readers didn't just run around waving this book and screaming "Science fiction!" It's one of those that is more literary than genre, and I have never seen it on a science fiction shelf at a bookstore (and if I did I would probably riot because wtf).

But having a discussion about this book? I'm not sure I want to. I can understand why my coworker and my mom were both uncertain about their feelings for this book. I will pass this on to my brother now, even though aliens are not his thing, just to see what he thinks. It may ruin our relationship, but what are siblings for. ...more

18 likes · Like · see review

Oct 22, 2014 Genia Lukin rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: other, 1001-books

This book is... okay? I guess?

It's certainly well-written, and tries for a sort of thriller vibe, The problem is, I am not altogether certain this book is actually good sci-fi. It certainly isn't trying to be good sci-fi; one gets the feeling that the author isn't sure he ought to be writing sci-fi, because, God forbid, he might be forever stuck in the sci-fi ghetto, where authors go to die. On the other hand, how else would he justify to many hammers on his readers' heads?

One of the problems wi This book is... okay? I guess?

It's certainly well-written, and tries for a sort of thriller vibe, The problem is, I am not altogether certain this book is actually good sci-fi. It certainly isn't trying to be good sci-fi; one gets the feeling that the author isn't sure he ought to be writing sci-fi, because, God forbid, he might be forever stuck in the sci-fi ghetto, where authors go to die. On the other hand, how else would he justify to many hammers on his readers' heads?

One of the problems with the book - and I can't go into too much detail without utterly spoiling the plot - is that it builds an incredibly false analogy, bu making the people it depicts be, essentially, total idiots. Bigotry is common; not noticing certain issues that the entire lot of them appears to've missed smacks of shoddy plotting just to increase the shock value.

Really, this book might've worked better if the author'd gone all out sci-fi, and not tried for this wishy-washy realism that shoots its own message in the foot. Of course, what this book really didn't need was yet another Take That hammer. It's actually rather funny to compare this book's treatment of the issues it promotes with the incredibly casual but much more plausible attitude taken towards the matter in Scalzi's The Ghost Brigades. Fabeer can sure as heck write better than Scalzi, but Scalzi's treatment strikes one as a good deal more plausible.

It's also quite a bit repetitive. I mean, it's trying to build up an atmosphere, but there are only so many times one can read essentially the same scene, with the same interactions, over and over again. There is a distinct impression that the entire main cast, including the main character, are almost incapable of learning.

(view spoiler)[
Going a bit into the spoiler tag, really, author, really?? Okay, Meat is Murder, we get it, but your analogy shatters into a million tiny little pieces when your 'animals' become sentient beings, with a recognizably technological advanced civilization. I mean, even we horrible terrible carnivorous humans manage to classify foreign intelligence based upon more subtle signs than 'how many legs they've got'. We realize that dolphins are quite smart, but bipedal dinosaurs probably weren't.

You have a character who works around Earth for years, speaks the language, watches television, granted while apparently learning zero-all about the society she's interacting with, but she's utterly appalled at the idea of consuming sheep because, look, they're walking on all fours and they have fur. As though the number of limbs actually mattered to what people eat or don't eat.

Apparently the more or less sentient nature of the human meat is basically hidden on the home planet, but these advanced spacefaring aliens with hyperdrive or whatever obviously don't possess any kind of anthropology or Linguistics that would tell even the merest dilettante with some general education that writing's prooooobably a bad sign insofar as his 'animals' go. I mean, this guy's been living in a structure that's been made by 'animals' - our of synthetic material - seen vehicles they constructed, and yet when presented with a single word of writing - actual writing even if he can't understand it - he gasps 'could it be they have some sort of language??'

Wow.

I get that he's trying to show how creatures that are different are also deserving of respect, but I feel he's undermining his own point, because instead of saying 'treating animals the way we do for food and eating them is bad' most people will come out of the book saying 'let's not eat sapient species, mmmkay?'

Also, just a small nitpick of mine - for however many years, Isserley has not once heard the word 'mercy' spoken in real life or on Television? What's she been watching?

(hide spoiler)]

I probably wouldn't recommend this book to people who actually read science fiction, but it might do for the sort of literary snob who thinks science fiction has cooties and might be just a little dirty. ...more

6 likes · Like · see review

Nov 25, 2017 Nadine in California rated it it was amazing

I debated reading this, since I knew the big reveal already, but I'm so glad I did - the book is so incredibly imaginative and fluidly written that the reveal is just one great element among many. Even in the rare moments when Faber used a word I didn't know, it didn't break my reading stride. This book takes an utterly original look into a female psyche on so many levels - which I can't describe without destroying the reveal. I finished the book during a visit with family, and I was so eager to ...more

3 likes · Like · see review