I like the way the plot is not spoiled anywhere I've seen, though. It's not so much because there is a huge twist, but because having the situation gradually unfolded made my empathy for Kathy and her friends much more intimate and real. If I had known the truth all along, it would have been much harder to feel that keenly for them.

To me, there was no question about what made them human. What was more engrossing was seeing how they developed their humanity and managed to experience life given their circumstances.

If you take the basic story and think about all of the different ways it could have been told - think, for example, about how Stephen King, Philip K. Dick, Stieg Larsson, or any other writer of thrillers or science fiction would have told it - I think it is awesome that we get this story from Ishiguro. He tells it in a more powerful way than any other writer could.