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In Yana, the Touch of Undying
Bramt Hex was weary of student life. Although an infra-magus of no small standing—or girth—he couldn't face a future dining on the slender means of a scholar. A hastily contracted alliance with the widow of ruthless homunculus magnate Orgle Poon soon fell through when he bungled the sale of her brothel to an irritable demon.
His body sold to the skin-farms, Bramt had little to hope for. The hills were full of vampires and he had little money to bribe the giant Karbies who guarded him.
But when a passing wizard freed him, Hex resolved—by hook or by crook—to make his way to Yana. There he would receive the touch of Undying—and could begin to map the world...
His body sold to the skin-farms, Bramt had little to hope for. The hills were full of vampires and he had little money to bribe the giant Karbies who guarded him.
But when a passing wizard freed him, Hex resolved—by hook or by crook—to make his way to Yana. There he would receive the touch of Undying—and could begin to map the world...
332 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1985
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587 people want to read
About the author
Michael Shea
73 books197 followersFor the British author of thrillers and non-fiction see Michael Shea
Michael Shea (1946-2014) was an American fantasy, horror, and science fiction author who lived in California. He was a multiple winner of the World Fantasy Award and his works include Nifft the Lean (1982) (winner of the World Fantasy Award) and The Mines of Behemoth (1997) (later republished together as The Incomplete Nifft, 2000), as well as The ARak (2000) and In Yana, the Touch of Undying (1985).
Michael Shea (1946-2014) was an American fantasy, horror, and science fiction author who lived in California. He was a multiple winner of the World Fantasy Award and his works include Nifft the Lean (1982) (winner of the World Fantasy Award) and The Mines of Behemoth (1997) (later republished together as The Incomplete Nifft, 2000), as well as The ARak (2000) and In Yana, the Touch of Undying (1985).
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
August 23, 2021
A morbid quest, Dying Earth style, instilled with a sense of the utter disdain the cruel universe has for life, yet ultimately redeeming. Appropriate then that this is a quest for immortality.
"What an impudence, an insouciance Life is! The universal Rule is Void. Gaping, freezing blackness without feature, without force, without end. Yet here, there, everywhere this buffoon Life staggers, struts, swells and plumps out its plumage, rearing its grotesque elaboration screechingly, shamelessly from the vast environing Nullity! All this, while at every step the slightest tremor shatters it..."
Bramt Hex, everyman anti-hero, is propelled through a series of unlikely adventures, deadly but smacking of the ridiculous, purely by chance. He inches ever closer to his goal of discovering the mysterious location where he might gain the secret he seeks. A lifelong academic, Hex is honest for the most part, yet utterly naive in the ways of the world as well as his own estimations of himself, and despite countless foibles, including cowardice and hubris, manages to overcome challenge after challenge owing to luck and propitious timing. Plus, what you might call an indomitable spirit, or perhaps more cynically, hopeless naiveté.
In any case, Shea has created a fascinating world of bizarre (deadly) creatures and (deadly) sorcery and magic. A world where neighbor exploits neighbor and the value of a human life is what you can get for it on the open market, and often do. Perhaps I'm making it sound darker and more macabre than intended, but this is certainly no jaunty tale of a happy-go-lucky scoundrel or ne'er-do-well bent only on thieving and idleness. It's a cruel world, and our hero gets blood on his hands, sometimes directly, and more often as a consequence of his actions, and doesn't seem much bothered by either. Yet ultimately there's something redeeming in his journey. A brief ray of hope, however dim and late, that tells you that maybe, just maybe, he's got some tiny drop of self-awareness buried down deep in his soul.
"What an impudence, an insouciance Life is! The universal Rule is Void. Gaping, freezing blackness without feature, without force, without end. Yet here, there, everywhere this buffoon Life staggers, struts, swells and plumps out its plumage, rearing its grotesque elaboration screechingly, shamelessly from the vast environing Nullity! All this, while at every step the slightest tremor shatters it..."
Bramt Hex, everyman anti-hero, is propelled through a series of unlikely adventures, deadly but smacking of the ridiculous, purely by chance. He inches ever closer to his goal of discovering the mysterious location where he might gain the secret he seeks. A lifelong academic, Hex is honest for the most part, yet utterly naive in the ways of the world as well as his own estimations of himself, and despite countless foibles, including cowardice and hubris, manages to overcome challenge after challenge owing to luck and propitious timing. Plus, what you might call an indomitable spirit, or perhaps more cynically, hopeless naiveté.
In any case, Shea has created a fascinating world of bizarre (deadly) creatures and (deadly) sorcery and magic. A world where neighbor exploits neighbor and the value of a human life is what you can get for it on the open market, and often do. Perhaps I'm making it sound darker and more macabre than intended, but this is certainly no jaunty tale of a happy-go-lucky scoundrel or ne'er-do-well bent only on thieving and idleness. It's a cruel world, and our hero gets blood on his hands, sometimes directly, and more often as a consequence of his actions, and doesn't seem much bothered by either. Yet ultimately there's something redeeming in his journey. A brief ray of hope, however dim and late, that tells you that maybe, just maybe, he's got some tiny drop of self-awareness buried down deep in his soul.
October 27, 2014
Bramt Hex (the protagonist of In Yana) is nothing like Nifft the Lean. Nifft is wiry, worldly and perhaps a touch jaded. Hex, when we meet him, is a student, fat, indecisive and naïve (although he thinks himself worldly). A chance encounter with a dowager inspires him to abandon his old life; in the course of selling a brothel to Hell (don't ask), he hears mention of far-off Yana, home of the Touch of Undying, towards which he will spend the rest of the story bending his course, leaving in his wake, more often than not, a trail of wreckage and bodies and ruined lives (seldom by intention, you understand), shadowed by the sinister Arple Snorp as he crosses seas and lands in search of immortality.
This book's setting, as far as I'm aware, has no connection to the setting of Shea's Nifft the Lean, but the two worlds could be very comfortably joined. The book has a more distinctly Vancean tone than Nifft -- fewer grotesque beasts and more grotesque humans, a picaresque journey through an assortment of different cultures, more of an air of the slightly ridiculous to everything. But the tone can still be horrifying when events call for it, as when a ship sets out to harvest ghosts from a sea of the vengeful dead.
This book's setting, as far as I'm aware, has no connection to the setting of Shea's Nifft the Lean, but the two worlds could be very comfortably joined. The book has a more distinctly Vancean tone than Nifft -- fewer grotesque beasts and more grotesque humans, a picaresque journey through an assortment of different cultures, more of an air of the slightly ridiculous to everything. But the tone can still be horrifying when events call for it, as when a ship sets out to harvest ghosts from a sea of the vengeful dead.
April 6, 2017
The first several chapters are, admittedly, hard reading. This is by design: Bramt Hex is immediately classifiable as that special brand of idiot who may possess mental capacity, but who lacks ambition, drowns in hedonism when not coasting on past successes, and whose awareness--both in terms of common sense and empathy--sputters dimly. Easily manipulated and betrayed, even though he fancies himself dashing and quick-witted. He doesn't have that élan that redeems Jack Vance's Cugel the Clever.
The Vance reference is appropriate, although savoring this writing on your metaphorical tongue reveals intriguing differences. Shea is more earthy and coarse, reveling in businesses that Vance would never touch. One memorable scene featured an ogre composing a delicate, many-stanza'd serenade to his favorite beast of burden before Shea's favorite verb for ingestion is "guzzle", especially as it pertains to Bramt Hex. The world, too, is more baroque and animalistic than Vance ever wrote, being akin in its systematic cruelty and casual predation to China Miéville's Bas Lag: humans are sold to 'skinfarms'--an alluded horror somehow involving organ farming--and a popular textile called 'peel' whose manufacture involves monstrous consumption of convicts on an industrial scale. The entire subplot business of 'peel' was marvelously ironic and had a twist midway that took my breath away.
And enthusiasts of a role-play activity whose initials are "D" and "D" would do well to sup of the protracted discussion of the history of Kurl, a vast city-museum whose ruins are now being systematically picked through at immense risk, overseen by a completely corrupt system of Tax Squads likely to relieve delvers of their findings and lives.
The whole thing is darkly gorgeous and unsettling. And now, I have not only diminishing amounts of unread Jack Vance left, I am also running out of Michael Shea. How is Matthew Hughes's health these days?
The Vance reference is appropriate, although savoring this writing on your metaphorical tongue reveals intriguing differences. Shea is more earthy and coarse, reveling in businesses that Vance would never touch. One memorable scene featured an ogre composing a delicate, many-stanza'd serenade to his favorite beast of burden before Shea's favorite verb for ingestion is "guzzle", especially as it pertains to Bramt Hex. The world, too, is more baroque and animalistic than Vance ever wrote, being akin in its systematic cruelty and casual predation to China Miéville's Bas Lag: humans are sold to 'skinfarms'--an alluded horror somehow involving organ farming--and a popular textile called 'peel' whose manufacture involves monstrous consumption of convicts on an industrial scale. The entire subplot business of 'peel' was marvelously ironic and had a twist midway that took my breath away.
And enthusiasts of a role-play activity whose initials are "D" and "D" would do well to sup of the protracted discussion of the history of Kurl, a vast city-museum whose ruins are now being systematically picked through at immense risk, overseen by a completely corrupt system of Tax Squads likely to relieve delvers of their findings and lives.
The whole thing is darkly gorgeous and unsettling. And now, I have not only diminishing amounts of unread Jack Vance left, I am also running out of Michael Shea. How is Matthew Hughes's health these days?
October 9, 2025
Fantasy historically tends toward romanticism, the poetical, even when the story turns to war, heartbreak, and betrayal. Fantasy writers command a soft pathos, gentle lamentations, and frequent themes of grace and redemption.
Take Lord Dunsany, for example, in his masterpiece The King of Elfland's Daughter where a witch casts a curse:
"She whose curses had blasted the fire till it shriveled big logs of oak crooned now a melody like a wind in summer blowing from wild wood gardens that no man tended, down valleys loved once by children, now lost to them but for dreams, a song of such memories as lurk and hide along the edges of oblivion, now flashing from beautiful years of glimpse of some golden moment, now passing swiftly out of remembrance again, to go back to the shades of oblivion, and leaving on the mind those faintest traces of little shining feet which when dimly perceived by us are called regrets."
Along with Dunsany, Shea's In Yana, The Touch of Undying should be rightfully canonized in the curated halls of seminal works of fantasy, but this novel exists in a room where shadows play on light, where spiders drop down from the ceiling on lone spindles of gossamer. Shea's fantasy is lawless, raw, and violent. Cruelty is everywhere. There are no apex predators in Shea's land; all are equally available for ravaging. If you find yourself on the wrong patch of grass, there may just be a herd of vampires waiting to dismember you or a group of Karbies to sell you to the skinfarms:
"Listen closely, my friend." The voice was gravelly, the words freighted with warm gusts of wine as they fell down on Hex. "You cried out. This you must not do. Never. Your next loud sound we will punish by crushing your feet, gagging you to mute your moans. Terribly painful, but we'll have no choice, and your feet needn't be intact for our purposes."
Or perhaps you are simply dinner:
"Kroppflopp now bit Racklin's head off, and stood a moment crunching it, as if in thought. As he took two further bites, Hex looked away, then saw him toss the red-stumped remnant into his trough."
But Shea's world is not only horror by means of Sadean libertines with their vivid and oddly casual means of violence, the terror is ambient:
"The water was alive with vaster tactile memories than their own. A kind of neural mutter moved through it; murder in a thousand vivid forms crackled around them, to be erased by a random counterwave, the pangs of a thousand species of disease."
Modern fantasy readers will likely go cross-eyed while adjusting to Shea's ornate tone. His writing has an elegiac quality, moral and sociological without being entirely didactic. Here the reader will find a lexicon of dense and florid language, as if marred from the very lore and magic texts found in Shea's world. The writing is decadent and confident, an empire of fine brush strokes and sweeping backdrops, psychotropic creatures, the living and the dead, all clash into one like a stake through the brain. In Yana demands attention; like Peake's Gormenghast, the story is to be found directly in the prose, and in this manner Shea skillfully pays homage to a long lineage of the fantastical.
While In Yana characteristically belongs to Shea, it owes much of its style to David Lindsay's A Voyage to Arcturus, following the same episodic pacing, C.L. Moore's Jirel of Joiry for its gloaming mood, and of course, Jack Vance, Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith.
What Shea accomplished in his few works confidently cements his memory as an important voice of the fantastic. I applaud Shea's obvious adoration and knowledge of his chosen genre even alongside his varying degree of success when imparting something uniquely imaginative. It's my personal belief that Nift the Lean is Shea's masterpiece, as toward the end of In Yana things fall a bit flat. Shea rushes to compress his episodic journey into a moral framework within a single chapter, resulting in a wooden conclusion as he scrambles to find a "point" for Hex's voyage, an organizational misstep in an otherwise fearless work. However, Shea has no boundaries, and unabashedly deployed his worlds for us to fall into, and the literature of fantasy is that much better for it.
Take Lord Dunsany, for example, in his masterpiece The King of Elfland's Daughter where a witch casts a curse:
"She whose curses had blasted the fire till it shriveled big logs of oak crooned now a melody like a wind in summer blowing from wild wood gardens that no man tended, down valleys loved once by children, now lost to them but for dreams, a song of such memories as lurk and hide along the edges of oblivion, now flashing from beautiful years of glimpse of some golden moment, now passing swiftly out of remembrance again, to go back to the shades of oblivion, and leaving on the mind those faintest traces of little shining feet which when dimly perceived by us are called regrets."
Along with Dunsany, Shea's In Yana, The Touch of Undying should be rightfully canonized in the curated halls of seminal works of fantasy, but this novel exists in a room where shadows play on light, where spiders drop down from the ceiling on lone spindles of gossamer. Shea's fantasy is lawless, raw, and violent. Cruelty is everywhere. There are no apex predators in Shea's land; all are equally available for ravaging. If you find yourself on the wrong patch of grass, there may just be a herd of vampires waiting to dismember you or a group of Karbies to sell you to the skinfarms:
"Listen closely, my friend." The voice was gravelly, the words freighted with warm gusts of wine as they fell down on Hex. "You cried out. This you must not do. Never. Your next loud sound we will punish by crushing your feet, gagging you to mute your moans. Terribly painful, but we'll have no choice, and your feet needn't be intact for our purposes."
Or perhaps you are simply dinner:
"Kroppflopp now bit Racklin's head off, and stood a moment crunching it, as if in thought. As he took two further bites, Hex looked away, then saw him toss the red-stumped remnant into his trough."
But Shea's world is not only horror by means of Sadean libertines with their vivid and oddly casual means of violence, the terror is ambient:
"The water was alive with vaster tactile memories than their own. A kind of neural mutter moved through it; murder in a thousand vivid forms crackled around them, to be erased by a random counterwave, the pangs of a thousand species of disease."
Modern fantasy readers will likely go cross-eyed while adjusting to Shea's ornate tone. His writing has an elegiac quality, moral and sociological without being entirely didactic. Here the reader will find a lexicon of dense and florid language, as if marred from the very lore and magic texts found in Shea's world. The writing is decadent and confident, an empire of fine brush strokes and sweeping backdrops, psychotropic creatures, the living and the dead, all clash into one like a stake through the brain. In Yana demands attention; like Peake's Gormenghast, the story is to be found directly in the prose, and in this manner Shea skillfully pays homage to a long lineage of the fantastical.
While In Yana characteristically belongs to Shea, it owes much of its style to David Lindsay's A Voyage to Arcturus, following the same episodic pacing, C.L. Moore's Jirel of Joiry for its gloaming mood, and of course, Jack Vance, Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith.
What Shea accomplished in his few works confidently cements his memory as an important voice of the fantastic. I applaud Shea's obvious adoration and knowledge of his chosen genre even alongside his varying degree of success when imparting something uniquely imaginative. It's my personal belief that Nift the Lean is Shea's masterpiece, as toward the end of In Yana things fall a bit flat. Shea rushes to compress his episodic journey into a moral framework within a single chapter, resulting in a wooden conclusion as he scrambles to find a "point" for Hex's voyage, an organizational misstep in an otherwise fearless work. However, Shea has no boundaries, and unabashedly deployed his worlds for us to fall into, and the literature of fantasy is that much better for it.
February 9, 2020
Commonly my jaw will drop while reading Michael Shea's haunting image-laden prose. IN YANA, THE TOUCH OF UNDYING is his finest work, better than his Nifft stories, which is saying a lot: they induce jaw-dropping syndrome too. Everything author Shea excels at can be found in IN YANA, THE TOUCH OF UNDYING.
The novel begins with a man lunching in an eating establishment. Ironically I learned about this book the same way. I picked IN YANA off a used book rack in a café to kill time while waiting for my lunch. When my meal arrived I put the book back on the shelf and ate, but those first few pages where Bramt Hex wanted to order homunculus stayed with me. The next day I hurried back to that café and bought IN YANA before some wiser soul than I absconded with it. I'm glad I did and knew I'd made the right decision a few chapters later when a building is physically sawn out of the ground at its foundation, inhabitants and all, and transported away in the air. By the time Shea got Hex to the tree slums I was hopelessly ensnared in the word pictures hyperventilating on the page.
That was almost 30 years ago and I didn't know then just how much Michael Shea was influenced by Jack Vance. I've owned Vance books since Jeff Jones was painting the Ace covers for Vance's Tschai series in the late sixties. Lately I've been reading Vance's Cugel stories (Shea published one himself) and was surprised to find homunculus mentioned at the beginning of THE EYES OF THE OVERWORLD (why I was surprised is surprising because homunculus, or the concept of it, has been around centuries before Vance was born). As entertaining and well-written as Cugel's follies are he comes across like a modernized Arlecchino from Commedia dell'arte, a slapstick sad sack scoundrel, not a hero, and not a very likable character either despite his inevitable and numerous comeuppances. On the other hand Shea intended protagonist Bramt Hex to be a louse too in IN YANA, THE TOUCH OF UNDYING yet Hex is a babe-in-the-woods compared to Cugel, less conniving, more a lazy opportunist than a louse.
[possible SPOILER this paragraph] Hex's reward at the conclusion of the story is as unexpected as anything that precedes it, almost as if he's transformed, redeemed, absolved of his sins.
By allowing Hex to grow and change as a character, even a little, Shea has done what so-called real novelists purport to do. IN YANA, THE TOUCH OF UNDYING is not a true picaresque novel the way Shea's NIFFT THE LEAN is, but by strict definition IN YANA is literature in spite of Shea operating in the déclassé fantasy genre theater. Like Bramt Hex, the unsavory Nifft is easier to relate to than the unsavory Cugel, but as much as I like the fantastical adventures of Nifft (particularly the ones set in Hell) I liked Hex's more. And I don't dislike Cugel---it's just that I know too many people like him.
The novel begins with a man lunching in an eating establishment. Ironically I learned about this book the same way. I picked IN YANA off a used book rack in a café to kill time while waiting for my lunch. When my meal arrived I put the book back on the shelf and ate, but those first few pages where Bramt Hex wanted to order homunculus stayed with me. The next day I hurried back to that café and bought IN YANA before some wiser soul than I absconded with it. I'm glad I did and knew I'd made the right decision a few chapters later when a building is physically sawn out of the ground at its foundation, inhabitants and all, and transported away in the air. By the time Shea got Hex to the tree slums I was hopelessly ensnared in the word pictures hyperventilating on the page.
That was almost 30 years ago and I didn't know then just how much Michael Shea was influenced by Jack Vance. I've owned Vance books since Jeff Jones was painting the Ace covers for Vance's Tschai series in the late sixties. Lately I've been reading Vance's Cugel stories (Shea published one himself) and was surprised to find homunculus mentioned at the beginning of THE EYES OF THE OVERWORLD (why I was surprised is surprising because homunculus, or the concept of it, has been around centuries before Vance was born). As entertaining and well-written as Cugel's follies are he comes across like a modernized Arlecchino from Commedia dell'arte, a slapstick sad sack scoundrel, not a hero, and not a very likable character either despite his inevitable and numerous comeuppances. On the other hand Shea intended protagonist Bramt Hex to be a louse too in IN YANA, THE TOUCH OF UNDYING yet Hex is a babe-in-the-woods compared to Cugel, less conniving, more a lazy opportunist than a louse.
[possible SPOILER this paragraph] Hex's reward at the conclusion of the story is as unexpected as anything that precedes it, almost as if he's transformed, redeemed, absolved of his sins.
By allowing Hex to grow and change as a character, even a little, Shea has done what so-called real novelists purport to do. IN YANA, THE TOUCH OF UNDYING is not a true picaresque novel the way Shea's NIFFT THE LEAN is, but by strict definition IN YANA is literature in spite of Shea operating in the déclassé fantasy genre theater. Like Bramt Hex, the unsavory Nifft is easier to relate to than the unsavory Cugel, but as much as I like the fantastical adventures of Nifft (particularly the ones set in Hell) I liked Hex's more. And I don't dislike Cugel---it's just that I know too many people like him.
February 1, 2011
In Michael Shea's In Yana, a character that features near the end of the book tells a story that is deceptive in its intent, and this could be said of the novel itself. At first glance, In Yana is a rollicking fantasy yarn, picaresque in construction, delivered straight-faced but with tongue firmly in cheek. Names like Orgle Poon, Arple Snolf and Kagag Hounderpound abound, the kind of names that set my fantasy-hating friends squirming in embarrassment, suggesting that Shea is perpetrating a grand joke of ridiculous proportions, and on one level that may be true.
From a conventional fantasy perspective, the book is full of inventive creatures and pithy, but not pedantic, worldbuilding, and the action is lively and vividly written. As a stylist Shea has the knack of writing ornate and even florid prose, while always retaining a poetic spareness and restraint of expression. What gradually emerges though, is that under the archness and the rambling plotline lies a story with deep and humane insight. The central character, Bramt Hex, is an all too recognisable bundle of contradictions. No conquering hero he, nor some snivelling self-hater either. Hex is a man who is all too aware of his own weaknesses, even as he is submitting to them. Borne along by forces seemingly beyond his control, he swings between hubristic overestimation of his abilities, and submission to the realities of his ethical, mental and physical shortcomings. Frequently tempted to mendacity, he more often than not falls back on approximate honesty, not so much out of moral judgement, but because he lacks the courage to pull off anything more. He is a plump man, bothered by his less than perfection, yet regularly overcome by his lusts. In short, a regular fellow. In short, someone much like me.
As the book builds to a fevered and grotesquely surreal climax, the ironic purpose of Shea's choice of title becomes evident. In a small way, the novel is a sort of echo of Cervantes' Quixote. It was recommended to me by Jesse Bullington, and there is also some kinship with his Sad Tale Of The Brothers Grossbart, with its "one damn thing after another" series of misadventures and lucky breaks. As Jesse says, it's not for everyone, but I have to say I found it most diverting, and ultimately even rather thought-provoking.
From a conventional fantasy perspective, the book is full of inventive creatures and pithy, but not pedantic, worldbuilding, and the action is lively and vividly written. As a stylist Shea has the knack of writing ornate and even florid prose, while always retaining a poetic spareness and restraint of expression. What gradually emerges though, is that under the archness and the rambling plotline lies a story with deep and humane insight. The central character, Bramt Hex, is an all too recognisable bundle of contradictions. No conquering hero he, nor some snivelling self-hater either. Hex is a man who is all too aware of his own weaknesses, even as he is submitting to them. Borne along by forces seemingly beyond his control, he swings between hubristic overestimation of his abilities, and submission to the realities of his ethical, mental and physical shortcomings. Frequently tempted to mendacity, he more often than not falls back on approximate honesty, not so much out of moral judgement, but because he lacks the courage to pull off anything more. He is a plump man, bothered by his less than perfection, yet regularly overcome by his lusts. In short, a regular fellow. In short, someone much like me.
As the book builds to a fevered and grotesquely surreal climax, the ironic purpose of Shea's choice of title becomes evident. In a small way, the novel is a sort of echo of Cervantes' Quixote. It was recommended to me by Jesse Bullington, and there is also some kinship with his Sad Tale Of The Brothers Grossbart, with its "one damn thing after another" series of misadventures and lucky breaks. As Jesse says, it's not for everyone, but I have to say I found it most diverting, and ultimately even rather thought-provoking.
January 17, 2011
Great, great read--not for everyone, but then nothing is, and to my mind this is second world fantasy at its best. Episodic, sure, and basically a picaresque--but I love the episodic and the picaresque, so this is right up my alley. Shea packs so many ideas into such tight quarters that the book seems ready to burst, yet the story never gets bogged down in world building--the point is that our protagonist, dumpy ex-academic Bramt Hex, is discovering the world himself, and his journeys allow for plenty of nuanced, unobtrusive descriptions of the strange realm he inhabits. Sardonic wit, a breakneck pace, and an impressive vocabulary combine to make this as good as anything Shea's hero Vance accomplished, and with his own style to boot.
July 6, 2017
Really a wonderful novel... Mostly unread, sadly, even compared to the rest of his oeuvre, and even back then a write-up in F&SF described it as "minor Shea". I couldn't disagree more. I would call it the most Vancian thing not written by Vance himself, in its themes, language, tone. Much more so that Shea's attempt at writing Cugel yarns. Obviously, while it reads like a glorious tribute to one of his biggest influences, it is more than tinged with Shea's own macabre imagination, down to his trademark surreal underworld imagery that we so loved in Nifft.
February 9, 2020
Shea is going for a synthesis of Vance and Clark Ashton Smith here but with his trademark unique ability to really bring unique monsters, creatures, and environments to a bold and striking life.
November 8, 2024
Despite being quite an interesting novel I have to admit I left In Yana, the Touch of Undying on the backburner for quite a bit, and only partially due to writing itself. I ought to read more of Michael Shea's writing before making any judgement calls regarding his style because this left me somewhat conflicted with its ups and downs.
We follow Bramt Hex, a scholar-in-the-making, as he's gorging himself at the nearest tavern where he is apparently a regular known for his enormous appetite as well as his generous girth. Acknowledging he's fat isn't just a throwaway line as it becomes a way to visually convey he's changing throughout the story in more ways than physical. That part is still far away as for now he's a rather unlikeable fellow and one disillusioned by his academic pursuits. Hex cares far more about food and women at the moment. What happens next is perhaps a familiar tale as he sees a rich widow, decides to present himself as a well-off scholar and do whatever she asks of him to get in with her, financially and otherwise. Sadly, widow Poon has her own agenda, poor Bramt ends up way over his head and is in-part undone by his own greed. Getting sold off to skin farms isn't pleasant and our protagonist only ends up being saved by a chance run-in with a wizard so he sets a new goal in life - cartography. Oh, and reaching Yana, that mythical place where immortality awaits.
Lazy as I am the above is more or less a re-wording of the back blurb you'll find on the book itself. However, very much like it, it's merely a brief and dry introduction to the imaginative world our protagonist lives in. If you're someone who likes everything neatly explained and categorized In Yana might not be for you as what explanations you get are done in-character so a lot is assumed to already be familiar because Hex and others, well, live in it. Not to mention a lot of it is bizarrely fantastical and remains unknown to its denizens as well. Jumping at various points during the journey you're looking at a genuine giant cursed to never set foot on land by a daily ritual, feral vampires with protruding chins who are much more dangerous than their hill cousins, and a race of people who can only be killed by... frustrating them enough. There is humor, but novel itself is written quite seriously so don't expect Discworld taking you for a laugh. I would argue setting itself is the main draw and yet the most obtuse as well.
We'll occasionally step into the shoes of someone else, but make no mistake that Bramt Hex is the protagonist of the piece. As I've mentioned already he is rather unlikeable. Not because I have an issue with fat people or even his lecherous womanizing ways, but because he's the worst kind of that overly verbose glib person. Being entirely self-serving means he'll confound with lies and flattery just to get his way, realizing only far too late there are consequences to it. Hex also decides to search for Yana practically on a whim. It's an odd decision on the level of someone saying "I'll find El Dorado!" out of the blue. It works because this is a fantastical place as much as because Hex ends up coincidentally running into people who can help him along the way. A lot of information regarding eponymous Yana gets divulged very late into the novel with the introduction of someone who is in the know. In turn this makes majority of the novel almost a series of warm-up shenanigans with their own dubious pacing that should add up to character development. In my opinion I don't think it works as Hex's character development was either far too inferred for me, or just too sudden. That's my take, at least.
Something I brought up in the opening was Michael Shea's writing and I have to say it's a double-edged sword. Man can write, but he also really loves wielding that thesaurus around. Not that I mind since it adds to the otherworldliness of Yana paired with made up words. Density might be an issue or it could just be my lapsing attention since I found myself re-reading paragraphs and deliberately slowing down. Verbose dialog paired with a bit too much purple prose and lack of straight up explanations results in a deadly cocktail not necessarily up to everyone's alley. There were so many quotes I wanted to share if only the site would recognize the novel properly, though.
Would I recommend In Yana, the Touch of Undying? More difficult to answer than I thought initially with my response fluctuating all over the place. Issue I had was the unevenness of the story and main character that took a while to warm up to, but I grew to enjoy the writing and world itself hooked me pretty much immediately. I'd give this a tentative YES if you're willing to give it an honest try.
We follow Bramt Hex, a scholar-in-the-making, as he's gorging himself at the nearest tavern where he is apparently a regular known for his enormous appetite as well as his generous girth. Acknowledging he's fat isn't just a throwaway line as it becomes a way to visually convey he's changing throughout the story in more ways than physical. That part is still far away as for now he's a rather unlikeable fellow and one disillusioned by his academic pursuits. Hex cares far more about food and women at the moment. What happens next is perhaps a familiar tale as he sees a rich widow, decides to present himself as a well-off scholar and do whatever she asks of him to get in with her, financially and otherwise. Sadly, widow Poon has her own agenda, poor Bramt ends up way over his head and is in-part undone by his own greed. Getting sold off to skin farms isn't pleasant and our protagonist only ends up being saved by a chance run-in with a wizard so he sets a new goal in life - cartography. Oh, and reaching Yana, that mythical place where immortality awaits.
Lazy as I am the above is more or less a re-wording of the back blurb you'll find on the book itself. However, very much like it, it's merely a brief and dry introduction to the imaginative world our protagonist lives in. If you're someone who likes everything neatly explained and categorized In Yana might not be for you as what explanations you get are done in-character so a lot is assumed to already be familiar because Hex and others, well, live in it. Not to mention a lot of it is bizarrely fantastical and remains unknown to its denizens as well. Jumping at various points during the journey you're looking at a genuine giant cursed to never set foot on land by a daily ritual, feral vampires with protruding chins who are much more dangerous than their hill cousins, and a race of people who can only be killed by... frustrating them enough. There is humor, but novel itself is written quite seriously so don't expect Discworld taking you for a laugh. I would argue setting itself is the main draw and yet the most obtuse as well.
We'll occasionally step into the shoes of someone else, but make no mistake that Bramt Hex is the protagonist of the piece. As I've mentioned already he is rather unlikeable. Not because I have an issue with fat people or even his lecherous womanizing ways, but because he's the worst kind of that overly verbose glib person. Being entirely self-serving means he'll confound with lies and flattery just to get his way, realizing only far too late there are consequences to it. Hex also decides to search for Yana practically on a whim. It's an odd decision on the level of someone saying "I'll find El Dorado!" out of the blue. It works because this is a fantastical place as much as because Hex ends up coincidentally running into people who can help him along the way. A lot of information regarding eponymous Yana gets divulged very late into the novel with the introduction of someone who is in the know. In turn this makes majority of the novel almost a series of warm-up shenanigans with their own dubious pacing that should add up to character development. In my opinion I don't think it works as Hex's character development was either far too inferred for me, or just too sudden. That's my take, at least.
Something I brought up in the opening was Michael Shea's writing and I have to say it's a double-edged sword. Man can write, but he also really loves wielding that thesaurus around. Not that I mind since it adds to the otherworldliness of Yana paired with made up words. Density might be an issue or it could just be my lapsing attention since I found myself re-reading paragraphs and deliberately slowing down. Verbose dialog paired with a bit too much purple prose and lack of straight up explanations results in a deadly cocktail not necessarily up to everyone's alley. There were so many quotes I wanted to share if only the site would recognize the novel properly, though.
Would I recommend In Yana, the Touch of Undying? More difficult to answer than I thought initially with my response fluctuating all over the place. Issue I had was the unevenness of the story and main character that took a while to warm up to, but I grew to enjoy the writing and world itself hooked me pretty much immediately. I'd give this a tentative YES if you're willing to give it an honest try.
September 11, 2013
I think I originally ordered this book because it was on a list somewhere of things you might like if you like Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun. It certainly has a similar appeal in some ways. I always appreciate an unpredictable adventure story in a strange world, and that's exactly what this is. The author's vocabulary and word choice also make this a fun book to read. Unfortunately, it's out of print. But fortunately, a used copy is not too difficult to track down.
September 12, 2016
Pretty wild n raw series of adventures in jack vance dying earth universe.
A dose of comedy and just desserts to those who are basards is ever present.
Just like Vancian tales.
Great stuff.
Hil vampires, demons, giants, witches, undead with crazy powers, evil pirates, mysteries, and uneasy aliiances.
Wish more written like it.
other leads for those hungery for GOOD scifi!:
Stormbringer (Elric, #6)
by Michael Moorcock
U 50x66
Jackvanc3gmail.Com's review
Sep 11, 2016 · edit
it was amazing
Read in January, 1988
Team Jagreen Lern, wow what a pissed bad guy!! I wish there was a novel series by u moorcock about the beginnings and rise of jagreen!!!
The Vanishing Tower (Elric, #4)
by Michael Moorcock
U 50x66
Jackvanc3gmail.Com's review
Sep 11, 2016 · edit
it was amazing
Read in January, 1988
beware voilodion ghagnasdiak!
you have stuumbled upon one of the great works of written art
some of best stuff ever written in fighting fantasy
would be 10movie series and best box office if made into film without social justice bs added
there is enuf moralizing trust me
The Sailor on the Seas of Fate (Elric, #2)
by Michael Moorcock
U 50x66
Jackvanc3gmail.Com's review
Sep 11, 2016 · edit
it was amazing
Read in January, 1988
ever meet your clone from another of the universes in the multiverse? and have to join forces to defeat evil on a galactic scale?
strap yourself in
Elric of Melniboné (Elric, #1)
by Michael Moorcock
U 50x66
Jackvanc3gmail.Com's review
Sep 11, 2016 · edit
it was amazing
Read in January, 1988
When Moocock is not hirign ghostwriters for his later stuff, he is arguably the greatest author of all time.
Elric was so good you can reread it 100 times and it tastes as good as the first time.
Just thuderously awesome.
Only Jack Vance, AE van VOGT, and robert e howard himself even come close.
Enjoy, but stick to elric 1-6 corum 1-3 and hawkmoon 1-3
The rest are ghostwriten.
The Great Explosion
by Eric Frank Russell
U 50x66
Jackvanc3gmail.Com's review
Sep 11, 2016 · edit
it was amazing
Read in January, 2014
also read the great explosion by eric frank russel:
Is criminality nature or nurture?
Do we need clothes?
ARe you dirty minded?
whats a antigand?
whats the weapon?
why do we take orders from fat burocrats?
read and find out! ton of fun awaits!
other leads for you noobs:
Voyage from Yesteryear
by James P. Hogan
U 50x66
Jackvanc3gmail.Com's review
Sep 11, 2016 · edit
it was amazing
Read in January, 2014
Ayn rand was right about everything, youtube yaron brook.
Wow this novel is wicked awesome!
Stop regulating and everyone is happy!
other scifi leads, thank me later:
Moorcock Vance Howard Gygax AE VAN VOGT oh my!!!! you could make 10 movies at least and whole video game franchises and MMPORGS based on the black company universe!!
Goldmine of very orginial combinations of ass kicking fighting fantasy!
other tips and leads:
The Black Company (The Chronicles of the Black Company, #1)
by Glen Cook
U 50x66
Jackvanc3gmail.Com's review
Sep 11, 2016 · edit
it was amazing
Read in January, 2004
For those of you who are discovering awesome scifi not pushed by socialists, I salute you.
Glen Cooks amazing The Silver Spike black company 3.5, was my intro, then I backfilled 1-3 after spike I think he had ghostwriter because it falls off bigtime. BUT while it lasts WOW cook was ON like few others!!!!
VERY D&D VERY palladium RPG
brilliant really to mix Dying earth with small squad military, amazing no VIDEO GAME or movies based on this!!!! ASTOUNDING IN FACT
while crap from orson scott card and philip k dick gets made...although total recall with arnold was good as well as blade runner, but some of the other dicks are thumping bad
here are some other pointers:
The Lure of the Basilisk (The Lords of Dûs, #1)
by Lawrence Watt-Evans (Goodreads Author)
U 50x66
Jackvanc3gmail.Com's review
Sep 11, 2016 · edit
it was amazing
Read in January, 2009
Very palladium rpg or D&D.
Cool ideas, a bit dying earth with wizards creating a race? superscience? sorcery?
Great in that the individual has goals and seeks them.
Wish evans wrote more, or did he and I haven't checked?
Tales of the Dying Earth by Jack Vance U 50x66 Jackvanc3gmail.Com's review Sep 11, 2016 · edit i
Tales of the Dying Earth
by Jack Vance
U 50x66
Jackvanc3gmail.Com's review
Sep 11, 2016 · edit
it was amazing
Read in January, 2012
Arguably the best book ever written. Endlessly re reable. A classic that should be used in schools instead of drivel like Jayne Eyre and other goblin shit. Combines humor, vast worldbuilding, and wit with amazing plots and endless creativity. Did I menion it inspired the entire role playing game industry? starting with dungeons and dragons? Jack Vance is arguably the greatest author ever, with only Robert E Howard himself, AE Van Vogt, and Michael Moorcock at his very best with Erlic 1-6 Corum 1-3 and Hawkmoon 1-3 to contend. SO much better than Heinlein Azimov Card Vinge and others who are bandied about as good. Eric frank russel the great explosion, hogan with voyage to yesteryear, cook with black company 1-3, silver spike and lawrence watt evan with lords of dus bring a little of the magic feel you get from Vance. If only he had written more in the early period. Even Vanc'e later dying earth stuff is nowhere near the VAst Vast worldbuilding power of the originals. Just mind blowing. And you never hear of it. I believe this is because of socialist education and democrats. Vance in hsi space operas envisions a lightly regualted hotel and resort universe with conniving bureaucrats. This must bug pissy lefty librarians. Well now you know despite the coverup!! enjoy!
I think any public library system without a full collection of AE van Vogt, Robert E Howard, and JAck Vance should be all fired. They should also at least have the Moorcocks listed previously. and for you noobs yes get Tom baker the 4th doctor who videos. They along with 1982 the thing, alien 2, and the first 3 star wars will complete a basic good scifi collection.
A dose of comedy and just desserts to those who are basards is ever present.
Just like Vancian tales.
Great stuff.
Hil vampires, demons, giants, witches, undead with crazy powers, evil pirates, mysteries, and uneasy aliiances.
Wish more written like it.
other leads for those hungery for GOOD scifi!:
Stormbringer (Elric, #6)
by Michael Moorcock
U 50x66
Jackvanc3gmail.Com's review
Sep 11, 2016 · edit
it was amazing
Read in January, 1988
Team Jagreen Lern, wow what a pissed bad guy!! I wish there was a novel series by u moorcock about the beginnings and rise of jagreen!!!
The Vanishing Tower (Elric, #4)
by Michael Moorcock
U 50x66
Jackvanc3gmail.Com's review
Sep 11, 2016 · edit
it was amazing
Read in January, 1988
beware voilodion ghagnasdiak!
you have stuumbled upon one of the great works of written art
some of best stuff ever written in fighting fantasy
would be 10movie series and best box office if made into film without social justice bs added
there is enuf moralizing trust me
The Sailor on the Seas of Fate (Elric, #2)
by Michael Moorcock
U 50x66
Jackvanc3gmail.Com's review
Sep 11, 2016 · edit
it was amazing
Read in January, 1988
ever meet your clone from another of the universes in the multiverse? and have to join forces to defeat evil on a galactic scale?
strap yourself in
Elric of Melniboné (Elric, #1)
by Michael Moorcock
U 50x66
Jackvanc3gmail.Com's review
Sep 11, 2016 · edit
it was amazing
Read in January, 1988
When Moocock is not hirign ghostwriters for his later stuff, he is arguably the greatest author of all time.
Elric was so good you can reread it 100 times and it tastes as good as the first time.
Just thuderously awesome.
Only Jack Vance, AE van VOGT, and robert e howard himself even come close.
Enjoy, but stick to elric 1-6 corum 1-3 and hawkmoon 1-3
The rest are ghostwriten.
The Great Explosion
by Eric Frank Russell
U 50x66
Jackvanc3gmail.Com's review
Sep 11, 2016 · edit
it was amazing
Read in January, 2014
also read the great explosion by eric frank russel:
Is criminality nature or nurture?
Do we need clothes?
ARe you dirty minded?
whats a antigand?
whats the weapon?
why do we take orders from fat burocrats?
read and find out! ton of fun awaits!
other leads for you noobs:
Voyage from Yesteryear
by James P. Hogan
U 50x66
Jackvanc3gmail.Com's review
Sep 11, 2016 · edit
it was amazing
Read in January, 2014
Ayn rand was right about everything, youtube yaron brook.
Wow this novel is wicked awesome!
Stop regulating and everyone is happy!
other scifi leads, thank me later:
Moorcock Vance Howard Gygax AE VAN VOGT oh my!!!! you could make 10 movies at least and whole video game franchises and MMPORGS based on the black company universe!!
Goldmine of very orginial combinations of ass kicking fighting fantasy!
other tips and leads:
The Black Company (The Chronicles of the Black Company, #1)
by Glen Cook
U 50x66
Jackvanc3gmail.Com's review
Sep 11, 2016 · edit
it was amazing
Read in January, 2004
For those of you who are discovering awesome scifi not pushed by socialists, I salute you.
Glen Cooks amazing The Silver Spike black company 3.5, was my intro, then I backfilled 1-3 after spike I think he had ghostwriter because it falls off bigtime. BUT while it lasts WOW cook was ON like few others!!!!
VERY D&D VERY palladium RPG
brilliant really to mix Dying earth with small squad military, amazing no VIDEO GAME or movies based on this!!!! ASTOUNDING IN FACT
while crap from orson scott card and philip k dick gets made...although total recall with arnold was good as well as blade runner, but some of the other dicks are thumping bad
here are some other pointers:
The Lure of the Basilisk (The Lords of Dûs, #1)
by Lawrence Watt-Evans (Goodreads Author)
U 50x66
Jackvanc3gmail.Com's review
Sep 11, 2016 · edit
it was amazing
Read in January, 2009
Very palladium rpg or D&D.
Cool ideas, a bit dying earth with wizards creating a race? superscience? sorcery?
Great in that the individual has goals and seeks them.
Wish evans wrote more, or did he and I haven't checked?
Tales of the Dying Earth by Jack Vance U 50x66 Jackvanc3gmail.Com's review Sep 11, 2016 · edit i
Tales of the Dying Earth
by Jack Vance
U 50x66
Jackvanc3gmail.Com's review
Sep 11, 2016 · edit
it was amazing
Read in January, 2012
Arguably the best book ever written. Endlessly re reable. A classic that should be used in schools instead of drivel like Jayne Eyre and other goblin shit. Combines humor, vast worldbuilding, and wit with amazing plots and endless creativity. Did I menion it inspired the entire role playing game industry? starting with dungeons and dragons? Jack Vance is arguably the greatest author ever, with only Robert E Howard himself, AE Van Vogt, and Michael Moorcock at his very best with Erlic 1-6 Corum 1-3 and Hawkmoon 1-3 to contend. SO much better than Heinlein Azimov Card Vinge and others who are bandied about as good. Eric frank russel the great explosion, hogan with voyage to yesteryear, cook with black company 1-3, silver spike and lawrence watt evan with lords of dus bring a little of the magic feel you get from Vance. If only he had written more in the early period. Even Vanc'e later dying earth stuff is nowhere near the VAst Vast worldbuilding power of the originals. Just mind blowing. And you never hear of it. I believe this is because of socialist education and democrats. Vance in hsi space operas envisions a lightly regualted hotel and resort universe with conniving bureaucrats. This must bug pissy lefty librarians. Well now you know despite the coverup!! enjoy!
I think any public library system without a full collection of AE van Vogt, Robert E Howard, and JAck Vance should be all fired. They should also at least have the Moorcocks listed previously. and for you noobs yes get Tom baker the 4th doctor who videos. They along with 1982 the thing, alien 2, and the first 3 star wars will complete a basic good scifi collection.
June 11, 2009
"In Yana, The Touch of the Undying" can basically be described as a classic Gilgamesh tale retold through the endlessly fascinating world of Michael Shea's dark fantasy "Nift" setting. The quest for immortality and the meaning of life takes the central character on an epic journey across a world populated by ancient evil, conniving miscreants and magic that defies the imagination. A rich and thoroughly satisfying tale, this is one of those books I wished had been a thousand pages long -- though Shea captures more beauty and wonder in a paragraph than most writers of the weird and fantastic manage in whole trilogies.
January 19, 2012
Years and years ago, for a season all the bookstores in nearby towns and cities had bargain bins. Every store had the same books in the bins, and this was one of them. A fantasy story with a humourous undertone, this is a story about someone conniving their way to everlasting life and the journey they take as they try and find it. Entertaining and enthralling are how I remember this book from the many times I have read it, and I'm going to bump it up my list to read again having been reminded of it.
December 11, 2017
I you liked the dying earth by vance this is similar. In fact quest for simbilis, by sea, is a cugel adventure. Yana does not have cugel but instead an academic who causes much chaos when he embarks on his own quest. Dangers galore are brely avoided.
Read
August 6, 2011...incredible.
August 14, 2012
Perhaps my favorite Michael Shea book. Strange, magical, and touching.
November 11, 2018
Entertaining enough as a vaguely tongue-in-cheek quest fantasy, but it lacks the stylish prose and sly humour of the Jack Vance Dying Earth books it is so obviously trying to emulate.
November 5, 2019
I'd love to rate this book higher, but I found it to be quite a slog at times. Shea is hugely imaginative, but his writing can be problematic. This episodic novel is certainly Vancian, but the prose does not have Vance's nimble touch. Not to say that Shea is a bad writer, but the complexity of the scenarios is frequently overcome by the complexity of the prose. Still, there is a lot to love here--the story-loving squotobes, the Mines of Krul (fantastic D&D megadungeon!), Houderpound, etc.
September 17, 2022
3/5 stars
A mixed bag. I liked the premise and some of the individual adventures Bramt partakes in, but I never really cared about any of the characters. Unlike Cudgel in Vance's "Dying Earth" stories, Michael Shea's ensemble lacks the witty charm or mannerisms that Vance rendered on his cast of unscrupulous anti-heroes.
A mixed bag. I liked the premise and some of the individual adventures Bramt partakes in, but I never really cared about any of the characters. Unlike Cudgel in Vance's "Dying Earth" stories, Michael Shea's ensemble lacks the witty charm or mannerisms that Vance rendered on his cast of unscrupulous anti-heroes.
March 5, 2025
Very similar in style and setting to his stories of Nifft the Lean, and the book could easily be set in that world. It combines good storytelling and pacing, if suffused with a few too many coincidences, with horribly inventive descriptions of the monstrous and demonic.
July 27, 2020
I liked the story but not the writing or the main character.
December 6, 2020
A dying earth Jack Vance kind of extended set of stories. I loved it! Over teh top fantasy! Liek Greek myth meets pirates of the carribean with some tomb raider and conan the barbarian mixed in.
March 30, 2024
Recommended by Jordan West as Shea's masterpiece. I am not much of a fantasy reader, but this was extraordinary. Thank you, Jordan.
August 10, 2025
I found a copy of this book randomly while thriftingy a year ago, and it's now in my top 5 reads. I rate it higher than Shea's other, more popular, works by a mile. It's a real breath of fresh air considering how stale and repetitive fantasy can get when every author is ripping off Tolkien or DnD campaigns.
Michael Shea's imagination is what makes his work shine, here it's in full display. Every creature encountered is something out of one of Hieronymus Bosch's paintings, and they're never silent thugs waiting for our hero to mow them down with his mighty sword: they talk, they have personalities and back stories.
I also liked that it's self contained and short, so it's a really great casual read. A no brainer for next time you just want a quick fun read.
Michael Shea's imagination is what makes his work shine, here it's in full display. Every creature encountered is something out of one of Hieronymus Bosch's paintings, and they're never silent thugs waiting for our hero to mow them down with his mighty sword: they talk, they have personalities and back stories.
I also liked that it's self contained and short, so it's a really great casual read. A no brainer for next time you just want a quick fun read.
December 5, 2011
This book was recommended to me by a close friend, after reading this I now always reserve judgement when they recommend something to me.
It has been years since I read this but even so the feeling of wasted time still bothers me. maybe the problems is me that I want more from my reading than just a story to pass the time, which is all that I got from reading this book.
Don't get me wrong the technical side of the writing is not bad, but it just seems to have no real purpose, but more importantly I did not feel engaged with anything in the book.
I do not say this lightly but this is the worst book I have ever read.
It has been years since I read this but even so the feeling of wasted time still bothers me. maybe the problems is me that I want more from my reading than just a story to pass the time, which is all that I got from reading this book.
Don't get me wrong the technical side of the writing is not bad, but it just seems to have no real purpose, but more importantly I did not feel engaged with anything in the book.
I do not say this lightly but this is the worst book I have ever read.
Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews