UNDER THE SKIN is a sleek and bizarre science fiction story by Michel Faber, a sometimes erotic, sometimes ice-cold portrait of a disfigured alien predator. Strategically disfigured as a honeytrap for earth men who will soon be meat. Her name is Isserly and she picks up hitchers on the motorways of Scotland, conducting them into castration, mutation, and processing into foodstuff at the behest of a decadent cosmic aristocracy. The book pushes buttons like JG Ballard on hits of champagne-spiked estrogen. Through the insect eyes of a huntress in disguise, we're tricked into thinking about where our food comes from and who it used [...]