Harry Shannon's Posts - CrimeSpace2024-03-28T21:10:01ZHarry Shannonhttps://crimespace.ning.com/profile/HarryShannonhttps://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/60987639?profile=RESIZE_48X48&width=48&height=48&crop=1%3A1https://crimespace.ning.com/profiles/blog/feed?user=HarryShannon&xn_auth=noBook trailer for DAEMON on YouTubetag:crimespace.ning.com,2008-03-10:537324:BlogPost:1296002008-03-10T19:20:45.000ZHarry Shannonhttps://crimespace.ning.com/profile/HarryShannon
My new novel DAEMON uses forsensics and special ops themes to tell a traditional horror story. It's definitely not for the squeamish, but loads of fun. The book trailer is now up on You Tube. Check it out here and leave a comment!<br />
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http://www.youtube.com/v/qSPS05VCIZY
My new novel DAEMON uses forsensics and special ops themes to tell a traditional horror story. It's definitely not for the squeamish, but loads of fun. The book trailer is now up on You Tube. Check it out here and leave a comment!<br />
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http://www.youtube.com/v/qSPS05VCIZYFrom Crimespree Magazinetag:crimespace.ning.com,2007-07-30:537324:BlogPost:591362007-07-30T14:07:16.000ZHarry Shannonhttps://crimespace.ning.com/profile/HarryShannon
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman">My new thriller "The Pressure of Darkness" is hands down the most disturbing thing I’ve written to date; a novel that deals with bleak universal themes such as the cosmogonic…</font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman">My new thriller "The Pressure of Darkness" is hands down the most disturbing thing I’ve written to date; a novel that deals with bleak universal themes such as the cosmogonic cycle, the acceptance of impermanence, and the existence of evil. Working on it got me to wondering, not for the first time--just how far back does my love of dark fiction go? I remember spending my first allowance, an entire quarter if memory serves, on comic books like Batman and Tales from the Crypt. That’s a start. Still, I think the genesis of my deep and abiding love for crime fiction can be found under a bathroom sink in Nevada…</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman">The Central Pacific Railroad created the tiny town of Wells, Nevada back in 1869, carving it out of an area known as Humboldt Wells and some land originally occupied by the Shoshone tribe. When I was a stripling, less than 800 people lived there, many on one of several ranches located near the intersection of the 1-80 and the US 93. My Grandpa, H.H. Cazier, owned a cattle ranch maybe 20 miles south and west of Wells. I spent my summers there, milking cows, scattering feed to chickens and pigs, and herding groups of cattle back and forth across the blistering blacktop of a nearby highway. (Those familiar with my Mick Callahan novels already know that the main character was born and raised near a mythical town called Dry Wells).</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman">Grandpa also had a two-story house in town, located across the street from the school. Now, you have to realize that Wells was so quiet insects sounded like a lazy church choir. The place was safe, secure…and ultimately boring. Families opened their ground floor windows at night to cool things down, and they generally stayed that way. I was often left alone for long stretches of time to ride bareback on the ranch or wander through the house in town. Needless to say, it was a very different world circa 1959.</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman">One afternoon I found myself in Grandpa’s upstairs bathroom, looking for something to do. I’d seen him furtively stash something under the sink the previous evening. Skin tingling with excitement at my naughtiness I decided to see what he’d been hiding there. I hunkered down in my blue jeans and opened the cabinet. Under several bars of soap, cans of shaving foam and extra toothbrushes, I found a small cardboard box containing some paperback books and a few “men’s” magazines. I remember one had photo of a woman in fishnet stockings showing her fanny with a knowing wink.</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman">I was, of course, knocked senseless.</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman">A different magazine had a very disturbing story about a big game hunter witnessing the death of a villager eaten alive by a Bengal tiger. I was fascinated, and read that tale twice. However, not surprisingly, I also returned to the tempting female in the photo. In fact, I’m certain this was the day my voice began to change.</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman">Anyway, I’m not sure how long it took me to get to the mass-market books, but eventually I focused on one cover in particular. It featured a sketch of a grinning blond man named Shell Scott. We’re going back a lot of years, here, but I’m pretty sure it was a novel called “Strip for Murder,” which recent research shows was published in 1955. The back cover said something like, “I’d been hired to find a killer in a nudist camp, and I was going to look pretty damned silly wearing nothing but my gun!” Ha! In one day, I’d found Richard S. Prather, Shell Scott, the Spartan Apartments in Hollywood, Phil Samson of LAPD, adult magazines filled with beautiful, scantily clad women, some horrific articles, plus several brutal pulp tales of criminals and private detectives engaged in violence, sex and depravity.</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman">Irrefutable evidence there was a God.</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman">Two of my Uncles lived on the ranch at the time. I became a thief, stealthily searching their closets, night stands, bathrooms and bookshelves, looking for more crime fiction. I bummed paperback books from the men who worked the fields bailing hay and lived in the bunk house. I pirated every book I could find and at the end of that summer returned to Pomona, California a changed boy. I’d always enjoyed reading Tom Swift, the Hardy Boys, or anything else I could get my hands on, but now I was a lad on a mission.</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman">For the first time, I’d seen that real life was far darker, and more interesting, than my heretofore bucolic surroundings.</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman">Back home, I began to live at the local library, and rapidly talked my way into being allowed to peruse anything I wished to read. Some classics found their way into the mix, but my real hunger was for crime and eventually also horror fiction. I discovered the black, early work of Ray Bradbury and Richard Matheson, and also managed to get turned on to Raymond Chandler and Jim Thompson. Eventually, I found my Dad’s closeted collection of adult novels and absorbed a host of other pulp authors.</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman">As for Grandpa’s bathroom, the following summer there were some new magazines in that magic box. It contained another Prather jaunt or two, some Mickey Spillane, an Earl Stanley Gardner, and the first Matt Helm novel, “The Wrecking Crew” by Donald Hamilton. Helm knocked me out. His ruthlessness, cynicism and absolute devotion to a mission made my skin crawl. As years passed, I got my hands on each new novel and became a collector. I loved Lancer Books and the Fawcett Gold Medal stuff. Hell, after a time I’d buy a book as much for the name of the publisher as the author.</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman">As the years passed, I occasionally went on SF binges too; Robert Heinlein, A.E. Van Vogt, Issac Asimov, Murray Leinster, Andre Norton. I also read a lot of westerns, especially the novels of Louis L’Amour, but it was always crime fiction that really rolled my socks up and down. Then someone put the final nail in the proverbial coffin.</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman">John D. MacDonald.</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman">I first found him in a used bookstore in North Hollywood, California called “The Paperback Shack” in the late 1960’s. This remarkably prolific author of over 70 novels had created an indelible “new man” in laconic Travis McGee, and that character soon became an obsession. I seem to remember reading “Darker than Amber” first, then going backwards, but I’m not certain. I still have nearly all of MacDonald’s books, although very few paperbacks in first edition. Sadly, I lost most of those to cat urine over thirty years ago.</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman">Anyway, this was escapist fare but with real, satisfying meat on its bones. Don’t believe me? Here’s Travis McGee on love: “Either you lie, and stain the relationship with your own sense of guile, or you accept the involvement, the emotional responsibility, the permanence she must by nature crave. ‘I love you’ can only be said in two ways.”</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman">Wow.</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman">Or how about McGee’s pal Meyer, economist and realist, on the subject of ecology: “It is man’s primal urge to decimate himself down to numbers which can exist on a worn out planet.” A caution from the Florida coast, forty years before Al Gore.</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman">John D. MacDonald taught me that crime fiction could do several things at once; thrill, educate, enlighten, amuse and entertain, all within the confines of a morality tale that was virtually devoid of treacle. Once I’d discovered and devoured John D’s work, standard pulp fare seemed a fun escape, but no better than junk food. MacDonald understood that the real world can be ugly, yet he also had a sense of duty, a love of the natural world, a hatred for thieves and con men, a healthy mistrust of politicians and government, a dislike for the gratuitous overkill of modern combat, a bleak view of human nature, the heart of a reluctant hero, and a ‘knight in rusty armor’ adoration of the feminine. Not surprisingly, all of those attributes ended up expressed via the incomparable Travis McGee.</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman">He also wrote whopping good yarns, all banged out on one old Royal typewriter.</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman">And as for darkness? The “color” series featured terrifying antagonists who were relentless sociopaths with an atavistic pursuit of riches, a hideous propensity for violence and the casual abuse of women. Those bad guys can still hold their own against more contemporary fiction. Some of the language feels dated (the term “darling” is way over-used) and Travis’ world is a bit sexist, but times have changed. Still, John D. was the man. Travis always fought back. He tried to stand tall and come to terms with himself within what he perceived to be an amoral, often bleak universe. In fact, the world-weariness of “The Green Ripper” and “The Lonely Silver Rain” still break my heart.</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman">My love of literary darkness began under Grandpa’s bathroom sink and came to a head in a long-defunct book store called “The Paperback Shack.” Except for a brief diversion, a sordid affair with early Stephen King books, crime fiction has dominated my reading and writing ever since. (By the way, Mr. King once wrote of MacDonald, “He was the great entertainer of our age, and a mesmerizing storyteller.”)</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman">I gathered a number of my interests together to write my new thriller; a morbid curiosity about doomsday cults, an appreciation for Eastern religion and its view of the cosmogonic cycle, a taste for world politics and a fear of the threat of biological weapons. I also called on some tough, broken-down heroes like Travis McGee, Mike Hammer, Matt Helm and the burned-out men who paved the way. Because to this day I love crime stories about people who struggle to make sense of things, push back against a life that is often ‘nasty, brutish and short,’ and somehow manage to find a bit of dignity in a world filled with temptation and suffering. In short folks who are ultimately, in their own shopworn way, quite moral. Clive Barker once wrote that “horror is just another way of writing about the divine.” I would argue that statement applies to our field as well.</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman">I read and write crime fiction because, as Victor Hugo once said, “There is such a thing as the pressure of darkness.”</font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%"></p>Facing "The Pressure of Darkness"tag:crimespace.ning.com,2007-07-28:537324:BlogPost:586062007-07-28T14:12:13.000ZHarry Shannonhttps://crimespace.ning.com/profile/HarryShannon
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1"><font face="Times New Roman"><em>I'm not much into blogging. So here's a piece that originally appeared in "Mystery Scene...."…</em></font></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1"><font face="Times New Roman"><em>I'm not much into blogging. So here's a piece that originally appeared in "Mystery Scene...."</em></font></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman">So there I was, parked in my personal darkness. Stuck, facing an empty white screen and a blinking cursor…</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman">After three horror novels and two Mick Callahan mysteries (‘Memorial Day’ and ‘Eye of the Burning Man’) I’d decided to try my hand at a thriller. The initial steps were easy. My protagonist would be a young black-ops guy named Jack Burke, whose back story allowed him to work for both the mob and the government. Burke’s two best friends, former Delta soldiers, also lived in Los Angeles. All I needed was a big enough canvas, an enticing world-class mess for them to clean up. Unfortunately, my muse has a way of playing hooky at crucial moments. This time, she left for another dimension. Needless to say, substantial anxiety ensued.</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman">When darkness strikes, I generally look for an answer in the junkyard of my mind. Like most authors, I’ve worked at a lot of professions, pursued a lot of hobbies. What interests could I draw on for this one? I came close to praying about it. And that’s when the dimmer switch cranked up a notch.</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman">Although I’d never claim to be an expert, I’m intrigued by comparative religion; eastern religions in particular. The ball finally started rolling when I remembered a lecture on something a Professor euphemistically referred to as the ‘theodicy trilemma.” He said to imagine a triangle that cannot be reconciled into a straight, logical line of cause and effect. At the top, the human need to believe in a Supreme Being or force, something thing that is present in all cultures. At the left end of the base, the familiar idea that this central power is essentially beneficent. Now, at the right end of said base parks the ageless human question: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Why are we suffering?</i> These three points cannot easily be reconciled.</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman">Thus, dogma: One group holds that God is a jealous deity and punishes us for breaking His rules. Others see a pantheon of deities, who play with us for their own amusement. Some believe we sinned in the Garden of Eden and it’s due to beautiful, seductive Eve and a damned snake. Or perhaps it’s that we have lived and died before, and it’s all for growth; that’s why we’re suffering. And so it goes. In the end, all religions struggle to make sense of what Joseph Campbell referred to as the “cosmogonic cycle,” a numbing awareness that life is fatal. It will always end in death. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Every marvelously engineered living thing will ultimately collapse and rot, its eternal spark unaccountably removed by an unseen hand. Our little minds have a problem wrapping around that very spooky fact. And that darkness pressures the hell out of us on a daily basis.</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Ahem,</i> you say—very interesting. But what the heck does any of this have to do with plotting a thriller?</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman">Well, the day my darkness lifted, I was discussing such fascinating, if somber, truths with a young woman who had spent a great deal of time in India. During the conversation, she reminded me of an obscure Hindu sect called the Aghora, part of the left-hand path of Tantra. They hold that one should befriend what others consider unacceptable as a way of removing dualism; to join the divine as a unified “one,” see nothing in creation is ugly or repulsive. Adherents will sit on rotting corpses to meditate, eat excrement, or visit funeral pyres to remove tiny pieces of charred human flesh. Some gentle teachers carry this flesh in bags around their necks. They nibble on it when feeling too removed from universal truth.</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman">A little spark like that can turn out to be a bonfire. I’d read about this sect in the past, and had a couple of tattered books at home. I studied them again, and was gripped by an idea. What if a new cult evolved, similar to the peaceful Aghora, but far beyond the doctrine of acceptance; in fact, one so twisted it actually <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">worshipped</i> death and decay? They’d be apocalyptic, of course. And only my former D-boy could save the day.</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman">In keeping with that theme, protagonist Jack Burke soon became older. He’s in the grip of a personal crisis, a man with The End on his mind. Someone he loves is gravely ill. He’s torn between personal demons and professional obligations, his love of youth and his fear of the rapidly approaching unknown. Like all of us, courageous and frightened, smart and foolhardy, dreaming big and just trying to get by. Wishing time would slow down. But the clock just keeps on ticking…</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman">I found my title when I remembered something Victor Hugo once wrote, “There is such a thing as the pressure of darkness.”</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman">When Burke comes to terms with his own fears, he’s given an opportunity to redeem himself, and just maybe save the world. In short, inventing that new cult allowed me to explore richer themes, scare the hell out of myself with an all too plausible doomsday device, and even riff on the relationship between three aging men who saw inglorious combat together back in Somalia in the early 90’s.</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman">And that anxious writers block, my personal darkness? Gone!</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman">…Well, until the next time.</font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman">THE PRESSURE OF DARKNESS</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman">By Harry Shannon</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Five Star Mysteries</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">ISBN: 1-59414-470-2</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">“If Michael Herr, David Morrell and Robert Stone wrote a book together, this would be it. ‘The Pressure of Darkness’ is a tremendous novel that works on every level.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">--Ken Bruen</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">(Author of “The Dramatist” and “The Guards”)</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">“A blend of horror, Eastern philosophy, Spec Ops thriller, and virus<br/>white-knuckler, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">The Pressure of Darkness</i> keeps the pages turning as fast as<br/>your hands can move. Strap in and read fast, or this one'll leave without<br/>you.” <br/>--Gregg Hurwitz (Author of the Tim Rackley novels)</span></p>
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