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394 lines
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[1]Skip to Content
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[39]Subscribe to skip adsAdvertisement
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[40]Defector Reads A Book
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Dan Simmons Is Dead, So It’s Time To Read ‘Hyperion’
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[41][hea]
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By [42]Barry Petchesky
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12:55 PM EDT on March 8, 2026
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• [43]Share on Bluesky
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• [44]Share on Reddit
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WRITER DAN SIMMONS PUBLISHES 'FIRES OF EDEN'
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Dan Simmons in 1994.
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|Sophie Bassouls/Sygma via Getty Images
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[47]
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98Comments
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Call it the Orson Scott Card problem. You want to recommend a piece of sci-fi
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to a friend, but you know that if you do, you'll have to include the disclaimer
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that the author's politics are diametrically opposed to your own, and you find
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them downright objectionable. You truly love the book, and you think your
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friend will love it too, but you wonder if you even want to bother with the
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whole rigamarole the disclaimer requires.
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The best way I can describe Dan Simmons, who [48]died last month at age 77, is
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as someone who got driven crazy by watching too much Fox News after September
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11th. Not one but two of his future-set novels feature as major plot points a
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Global Islamic Caliphate. One of those, Flashback, is basically [49]one long
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rant about how the American left would ruin the world if they gained power. Not
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that Simmons didn't have some taste issues before—Song of Kali, his World
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Fantasy Award–winning first novel, has some moments that read decades later as
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stunningly racist—but late-career Simmons was at times totally unredeemable.
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This is a shame, because his best work belongs with the greats of fantasy,
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horror, and sci-fi. Summer of Night is a tighter, more satisfying version of
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Stephen King's It. Carrion Comfort is a brick-sized epic about psychic vampires
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that reads as breezily as a trade paperback. The Terror, which inspired the
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well-regarded show, is for its first three-quarters a brilliant and
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non-supernatural speculative take on a real doomed Arctic expedition.
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Simmons played around with metafiction in ways that, if they didn't always
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work, were always interesting. His Ilium and Olympos feature a batshit conceit:
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What if future humans turned themselves into the literal Greek Gods and moved
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to Mars and reenacted the Iliad and resurrected scholars from our time to
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document it? And also there are robots from Jupiter, and Shakespeare's Caliban
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is real. Drood is a historical thriller featuring Charles Dickens's
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madness-inducing obsession with one of his characters, who may or may not be
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real. The Fifth Heart puts Henry James and Sherlock Holmes together to solve a
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mystery in Washington, D.C. It's often very silly, but whatever can be said of
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Simmons, he committed to the bit.
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All that stuff (besides The Terror, which I truly love) might be an acquired
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taste for non-genre fans. Which brings us to the entire purpose of this blog:
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me telling you to read [50]Hyperion, and then you coming back later and saying
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thank you.
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Hyperion does not hide its inspirations. Quotes from Keats, whose poem fragment
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lends the book its name, litter its chapters. Jack Vance and Pierre Teilhard de
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Chardin are referenced by name. The entire book is one large frame story, the
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individual tales of seven pilgrims, a Canterbury Tales of the Ekumen. It is the
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obvious work of a voracious, small-c catholic reader, bringing disparate
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sources and philosophies to bear on the big questions of love, death, and
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redemption.
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Our seven are seeking the mysterious Shrike, a menacing, quasi-organic creature
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who is said to grant one wish to pilgrims, but also oversees the Tree of Pain,
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on which it impales its victims for an eternity of hell. Each character gets
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their own turn in the spotlight, sharing their past and explaining what they
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will wish for. A Catholic priest of a dying religion who must suffer unknowable
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pain to prevent a resurrection. A faith-questioning Jewish professor seeking a
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cure for his daughter, who is inexorably aging backward. A politician who is
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willing to destroy humankind in an act of ecoterrorism, or perhaps just
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personal revenge. A soldier in love, trying to prevent a war. A poet looking to
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complete his life's work, who believes the Shrike is his ultimate muse. Each
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tale stands by itself as an exploration and celebration of some aspect of
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humanity. Despite the sci-fi setting, Hyperion is at root an imaginative,
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sympathetic portrait of people, and should speak to any reader.
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The book ends just as our pilgrims reach the Shrike. The Fall of Hyperion
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completes their story, and then two Endymion books extend its themes and some
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of its characters into the wider universe. I think you can live without the
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last two, though I enjoyed them. And I think there's no reason for me to advise
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on the second one, because once you've read Hyperion you'll demand the direct
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sequel. It's a genuine achievement in sci-fi, using one of language's oldest
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literary structures to push the boundaries of what the genre can say about what
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it means to be human. It was always bound to long outlive its author.
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Recommended
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[51]Arts And Culture
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[52]
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Don DeLillo’s Funniest Novel Is A 1980 Hockey Sex Romp He Won’t Acknowledge
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[53]102Comments
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[54]Pete Segall
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March 4, 2026
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[55]A collage featuring three of the different paperback covers for "Cleo
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Birdwell"'s 1980 novel Amazons.
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[56]Subscribe to skip adsAdvertisement
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• [57]Share on Bluesky
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[61][hea]
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[62]Barry Petchesky
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[63]@barryp.bsky.social
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Deputy Editor
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Read More:
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• [64]Books,
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• [65]dan simmons,
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• [66]hyperion,
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[71]MLB
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[72]
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Even At The World Baseball Classic, The Mariners Cannot Escape Themselves
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[73]21Comments
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[74][ima]
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[75]Kathryn Xu
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March 10, 2026
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[76]Randy Arozarena #56 of the Mexico in action during the 2026 World Baseball
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Classic game between Mexico and the United States.
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[77]NBA
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[78]
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The Atlanta Hawks’ Magic City Night Was Too Misunderstood To Live
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[79]33Comments
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[80][ima]
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[81]Israel Daramola
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March 10, 2026
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[82][GettyImages-1707906347]
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[83]NBA
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[84]
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My Coworkers Browbeat Me Into Drinking James Harden’s Wine
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[85]34Comments
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[86][rat]
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[87]Ray Ratto
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March 10, 2026
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[88]James Harden of the LA Clippers carries his brand name wine J-Harden
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Cabernet Sauvignon and shoe package as he arrives ahead of their NBA game
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against the Toronto Raptors.
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[89]Funbag
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[90]
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The Kindness Of Familiar Faces
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[91]239Comments
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[92][dre]
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[93]Drew Magary
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March 10, 2026
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[94]Commuters waiting for a train
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[95]Chefector
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[96]
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If Cool The Pan Be, A Lousy Breakfast For Thee
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[97]117Comments
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[98][IMG]
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[99]Albert Burneko
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March 10, 2026
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[100]Stainless steel pan
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[101]College Basketball
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[102]
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Madison Booker’s Game Punishes The Tryhard Defender
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[103]5Comments
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[104][201]
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[105]Maitreyi Anantharaman
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March 10, 2026
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[106]Madison Booker #35 of the Texas Longhorns shoots over Destiney McPhaul #2
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of the Mississippi State Bulldogs during the first half at Moody Center on
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February 22, 2026 in Austin, Texas.
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[1] https://defector.com/dan-simmons-is-dead-so-its-time-to-read-hyperion#main
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[44] http://www.reddit.com/submit/?title=Dan%20Simmons%20Is%20Dead%2C%20So%20It%E2%80%99s%20Time%20To%20Read%20%E2%80%98Hyperion%E2%80%99&url=https%3A%2F%2Fdefector.com%2Fdan-simmons-is-dead-so-its-time-to-read-hyperion
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[47] https://defector.com/dan-simmons-is-dead-so-its-time-to-read-hyperion#coral_thread
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[48] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/mar/02/author-dan-simmons-death-hyperion-terror
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[49] https://www.npr.org/2011/07/28/137621172/one-rant-too-many-politics-mar-simmons-dystopia#:~:text=Dan%20Simmons%20is%20a%20popular%20author%20who,*%20Has%20bizarre%2C%20sometimes%20overtly%20offensive%20dialogue
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[105] https://defector.com/author/maitreyi-anantharaman
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[106] https://defector.com/madison-bookers-game-punishes-the-tryhard-defender
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[107] https://defector.com/all
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[108] https://defector.com/products
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[110] https://defector.com/
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[111] https://defector.com/
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[114] https://www.twitch.tv/defectormedia
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[115] https://bsky.app/profile/defector.com
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[116] https://defector.com/tips
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[117] https://defector.com/advertise-with-defector
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[118] https://defector.com/other-stuff
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[119] https://defector.com/other-stuff
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[120] https://defector.com/defector-hall-of-fame
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[121] https://defector.com/masthead
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||
[122] https://defector.com/privacy-notice
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[123] https://defector.com/terms-of-use
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[124] https://joinlede.com/
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