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Cytonic Full Book Reactions


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My reactions to Cytonic (just the character stuff, because I'm a character sort of person)

I like Chet, and his relationship with Spensa. I like characters who enjoy each other's company. The way they have they have their problems, but still remain friends who have each other's backs - I'm a sucker for that. Spensa's emotional journey really appealed to me, and she's a fun person to read about. Peg I also found interesting, and she's one of my new favourite characters.

I would have liked to see more of Skyward Flight and Brade, but I understand that's what the novellas are for (I haven't read them yet.) Still, after Brade being a big part of Starsight, I expected her and Winzik to play a larger part in book three. It's nice to see Hesho again, although I'm not a fan of characters coming back from the dead. (Narratively speaking, as a reader I scudding love it.) My favorite line:
“You will not distract me from my current purpose, adversary. Though you have fought admirably, I will defeat you, then compose poetry for your funeral.”
“This…um…isn’t to the death, Hesho.”
“I will defeat you,” he said in the same exact tone, “and compose poetry for your retirement party.”

Cracked me up :D

Overall, I enjoyed it better than Starsight, although I felt it suffered from the same problem of not having many characters from the previous book. I may even like it better than Skyward, although that's probably because I haven't reread it in a long time. Edit: I just reread it, and I still like Skyward best, though Cytonic is a very close second.

So, that ended up being longer than I thought! Sorry if it's a bit disjointed - it's my first time writing any sort of review.

Edited by Robin Hatter
Just remembered I forgot to say anything about the actual main character.
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53 minutes ago, Mistborn Surgebinder said:

I don't know how to delete my comment. 

I  don't think you can delete it completely, but beside Edit, there should be a button marked "Options." Click on it and press the Hide option, that should hide your post from everyone (except the mods I assume.)

Edited by Robin Hatter
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12 hours ago, Robin Hatter said:

My reactions to Cytonic (just the character stuff, because I'm a character sort of person)

I like Chet, and his relationship with Spensa. I like characters who enjoy each other's company. The way they have they have their problems, but still remain friends who have each other's backs - I'm a sucker for that. Peg I also found interesting, and she's one of my new favourite characters.

I would have liked to see more of Skyward Flight and Brade, but I understand that's what the novellas are for (I haven't read them yet.) Still, after Brade being a big part of Starsight, I expected her and Winzik to play a larger part in book three. It's nice to see Hesho again, although I'm not a fan of characters coming back from the dead. (Narratively speaking, as a reader I scudding love it.) My favorite line:
“You will not distract me from my current purpose, adversary. Though you have fought admirably, I will defeat you, then compose poetry for your funeral.”
“This…um…isn’t to the death, Hesho.”
“I will defeat you,” he said in the same exact tone, “and compose poetry for your retirement party.”

Cracked me up :D

Overall, I enjoyed it better than Starsight, although I felt it suffered from the same problem of not having many characters from the previous book. I may even like it better than Skyward, although that's probably because I haven't reread it in a long time. Edit: I just reread it, and I still like Skyward best, though Cytonic is a close second.

So, that ended up being longer than I thought! Sorry if it's a bit disjointed - it's my first time writing any sort of review.

As far as I know, this book was released just today.  How did you
A) Read it fast enough to post a review at 6:30 this morning, and 
2) Read it twice already?

I'm incredibly impressed.  I'm just 6 chapters from the end, and... man.  I'm listening to the audiobook, and when Chet was revealed, I literally stopped what I was doing and looked at my phone in utter shock.

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Honestly, I'm mostly just stunned after finishing. I learned so much and I can barely keep track of all of it :P

I liked most of the new characters in this book, like Peg and Chet, although I also wish we'd gotten to see more of Detritus and its characters. Moreover, Brade seemed a bit underdeveloped to me in Starsight and Cytonic, and I stil don't fully understand her and her motivations. I liked seeing Spensa form more bonds in Cytonic, though. (Plus, I loved seeing Jorgen's and Spensa's relationship develop!)

I really liked both Chet's and M-Bot's character arcs. It was fun--and enlightening--to hear them talk about what it means to have emotions, and what it means to be human. And Spensa, as usual, impressed me. I'm really happy with where she ends in this book.

As for the plot/pacing, they both felt slow and inconsistent. I know that matches Spensa's experience in the nowhere, but as a reader it just made me feel constantly disjointed. I did enjoy all the twists, though. I audibly gasped out loud during multiple parts of this book, but I probably reacted the most strongly to the ending, when Chet and M-Bot both made their decisions. I'm curious as to how we'll see them in Defiant!

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Well.... Scud. 

This book was just amazing. I personally loved it. Hesho coming back from the dead honestly didn’t go over that well with me. I feel like he died and therefore should stay dead it removed a lot of the kick from the end of Starsight. Is that to say I will complain? No. I love Hesho, and am glad I get more of him. I’m just slightly disappointed. (And then I remember I get more Hesho and the disappointment fades.)

That was honestly my only major complaint. (Aside from not learning more about what really started the Human wars) I loved the twists and turns and pirate queen Spin. I didn’t see Chet coming and was completely blindsided by that. It took me a solid 5 seconds to get over that. And when I learned that the next memory was from Jason from the Phone company I almost screamed. (I would have screamed but I happened to be in class at the time and that wouldn’t have been the best idea)

Sp yeah, great book but I feel like it won’t be as good to reread because a lot of the kick from this book was that there were a lot of awesome reveals. 

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This is a very interesting book. On first this first readthrough, I think I liked it better than Starsight. I'm really afraid I'll dislike it as I think about it more, but that rarely happens with Sanderson books. This book really felt like a Storm-lite book, but for Rhythm of War instead of just in general like Skyward was. Here, Spensa's journey was all about a new discover linked with old roots, not unlike Navani and Venli's discoveries in RoW. However, this felt more like The Empire Strikes Back instead of RoW's The Last Jedi. (Although Spensa's confrontations with Brade definitely felt like early Rey/Kylo Ren Force-times.) It's also interesting to see how much story Brandon is learning to compact into 100k words. I think he's practicing this now so that Stormlight books can be a little more compact in the future. 

This book is more akin to what I think I wanted from Starsight, but also not, if that makes sense. Like, I like who Spensa and M-Bot become during this book, but we needed Starsight to get there. 

As mentioned both others, this book does suffer from the same problems that Starsight did, but I don't think nearly to the degree the second book did. Here we got ample Jorgen; and while the rest of the flight was missing, the novellas really softened that blow. Defending Elysium's tie-ins were expected from Beta/Gamma reviews on Goodreads, but still very surprising in their implementation. And as @Chaos mentioned in his review, the book had a certain lack of tension that the first book did, and the sacrifices didn't hurt as much.* Still, it was an enjoyable, if safe and unsurprising (to me) ride. Still, this book has done a great job at hyping me up for Defiant, which I guess is officially the title now Evershore. 

 

My current Cytoverse ranking: 

Skyward

ReDawn

Sunreach & Cytonic 

Defending Elysium & Starsight 

 

 

*Although to be fair, sacrifices in books rarely hurt me emotionally, and I may just be too tired to have this one be sad. 

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So I did like Cytonic. But the thing I found odd was how much time we interacted with pirates and how little tension there was in the space combat except at the very end. Spensa is just too good of a pilot, and with the worldbuilding decision that they didn't use live ammo... that made the fights decidedly not tense for me.

One thing I am surprised about: I love the delvers again! I hated how easy the delver was to beat in Starsight, but I totally loved that that was now a corrupted, shunned delver. I dug that a lot. I found their backstory great. I am very surprised Brandon pulled it out for me because man, I was so deflated after Starsight. That said, I still think there should have been way more casualties from the delver there. It's kind of hilarious to me that the one casualty in Starsight came back to life in this book, with Hesho, haha. 

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I haven’t read the full book yet, but my current opinion is: Cytonic is not a gripping, edge of your seat, OMG what happens next book. But it a very, VERY fun read and I’m really enjoying it.
 

I’m enjoying it a lot more than I did SA or the other two books in the series. Not because those books were bad -they’re awesome - but because those books are more serious in many respects. They’re much darker in tone. I have to put a lot more emotional energy into the books, because I’m constantly worrying about the characters, or hurting over deaths, or any of a dozen other things.

Cytonic, in contrast, is FUN. Yes, there’s danger still, albeit of a different sort. But overall this reads as a cross between a D&D campaign and an adventure novel. It’s similar to why I love BoM. There’s just a lightness to the narrative in this book, even though the darkness is still present.

So while I don’t feel like I NEED to read the next  chapter, as I often do with a Brandon book, I WANT to because I’m having fun and can just enjoy the story without being terrified (in a good way) of what will happen to the characters next. Like Spensa gets to just enjoy flying, I get to just enjoy reading. It’s a much needed breather for both of us.

And I do mean needed. This is the first book where I really connected with Spensa and felt she was growing. From the beginning, Spensa has always been in survival mode. She had to be. Now she finally has a moment to breathe - and in that moment she’s finally getting a chance to figure out who she is and what she wants. I understand why some disagree with the choice to remove a major source of danger, but I don’t think Spensa could grow into herself if she didn’t have the momentary safety to do so.

TL;DR: I love the book so far and I’m taking my time reading it so I can fully enjoy the experience. I don’t know that this will be my favorite book - that’s probably still Skyward - but it’s the read that’s been most fun for me.

Edited by Kingsdaughter613
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Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeessssss. Kingsdaughter pretty much summed up my entire experience but here's my own rant:

I liked this book. It was FUN. I loved Starsight, but tbh when that ending implied that Spensa will be away from fighting the war with the Superiority and embark on a side quest, I was a bit worried that Cytonic will end up falling in the "just a filler book" category despite it being a main novel (and the series being about Spensa's story). In some ways it did feel that way, but hot damn I was wrong for the most part though. 

I found it more chill and enjoyable, a pleasant contrast to the others--novellas included--which dealt with more serious things.

Can I just say though, Spensa and M-Bot's childish excitement to the stuff we would find pretty normal (like the ocean and mushrooms) was SO PURE. It made my heart melt seeing her finally just getting to live you know?? During the adventuring she acted just like a kid who'd been taken to a theme park for the first time and *incoherent babbling* I LOVE it.

Loved the reveals and the stuff we learned. Space pirates were cool, I kinda hope we'll see them again (especially since Spensa still has that promise). The relationship between Spin, the pirates, M-Bot, Chet were fun (Oh and her relationship with Jorgen hhhhhh my precious babies got together, finally). Spensa's character development was one of the hit points of the book for me: she matured in this one yet still remains to be the little aggressive little gremlin who owns my heart :wub: 
 (spoilering the next part because my main rant is getting too long XD, feel free to skip it)
 

Spoiler

One of my top favorite scenes was her talk with M-Bot, Hesho, and--to some extent--Doomslug after Peg and Chet gave her offers. It just hit way too close to home. 
It was obvious that she would return...but in that moment I really felt her pain in considering the 'selfish' option for once. And if she did, I honestly wouldn't have been able to be fully mad at her, knowing what she's been through for basically her entire life. Then she got a glimpse of what her life could be in the Nowhere; awesome, with no worrying whatsoever...I mean, who wouldn't be tempted?? :'D

AND THAT ENDING *bangs fists on table* DAYUM BRANDON WHY MUST YOU DO THIS TO ME. And the lore about the delvers, cytonics, AI was...wow it's great finally getting some answers, so now let's go beat Winzik's a-
Super hyped for Evershore and Defiant!!

Final thoughts: Liked and enjoyed it. A lot. The reveals were great, though I suspect it wouldn't be as fun on a reread anymore since the whole surprise aspect was what made them super exciting, but oh well. It was an enjoyable break from the more serious books, but in terms of the books as a whole I still think my ranking would be Starsight>>Skyward>>(Sunreach & Redawn)>>Cytonic. However, Cytonic does now hold the 'Most Favorite Book-ish Moments' title (sorry Skyward) and that says a lot. 

Edited by caramel_
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So, overall impressions ...

Skyward still stands as my very much favourite but I'm happy to say that I liked Cytonic more than Starsight.

The Setup: I love the Nowhere. I mean, fragments of various worlds with all kinds of life and structure? It's like every planet send a sample of itself there for intrepid adventurers to explore. I totally get Spensa's rising spirit and enthusiasm because I felt exactly the same. It was contagious. Add to that the Elder's Quest and the mysterious ways the place affect people (no need to eat, sleep, the time slip, the memory loss - almost like it turns you into a ghost :D

The Characters: Spensa's growth here was very well built I think, mostly because it wasn't just a personal growth, nor gaining few levels in power but both together - you need to accomplish one to achieve the other and then that leads to new insights on the first, etc. Very nicely intertwined. I also liked her interractions with Jorgen.

Chet is difficult to comment upon given what it turned out to be (because while it was obvious something weird was up with him I very much didn't get what exactly up until the end).

Mbot was adorable, but then he always is, and I loved his development and hopefully we'll see him again SOON and not at the very end of the series.

Peg and the Broadsiders were nice addition and honestly it was refreshing to see Superiority citizens with a little more determination and open mind. Pitty they had to be exiled first but then again one's perspective on society is often most clear when one steps outside of it.

Hesho - now, I don't usually like resurrections, they tend to backfire on the plot, however  if there was ever a place where that would feel natural, it will be in the Nowhere. Where else could you meet a ghost but in a place that is half real :)

If I have any problem with the book at all, that will be the ending and mostly because I was impatiently waiting the reveal of the final portal and it turned out to be .. not that revealing, I already guessed the most important parts of it. I think that is mostly my own problem though, I've become spoiled by Sanderson to always expect some giant, shocking twists and turns and when I don't get them, it feels underwhelming.

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I liked the book - it felt much better than Starsight, imo.  It felt like Cytonic really brought us back to the main story, where Starsight got things really sidetracked.  Or maybe, it brought context to Starsight in that it's just in Spensa's nature to go off and have adventures so it wasn't quite as jarring.  I think what I liked about it was that Spensa remained focused on her ultimate goal of saving Detritus and the humans, still maintained her connection with Jurgen, but still was able to have a cool adventure and meet new people.  I think is what I felt was missing in Starsight - Spensa just rushed off to a new world and formed emotional connections with new people we (I) really didn't care about.  A big part of the fun of Skyward for me was reading her interactions with the whole team on Detritus.  We had new characters introduced in Cytonic, but Spensa always kept them at arm's length.  She eventually formed a bond with Chet but that felt earned after her initial skepticism of him.

I'll never love Sanderson's style of humor, but I felt like he did a better job of packaging it in this book vs. RoW so that it was less grating and even actually enjoyable sometimes.  

The overall worldbuilding was a cool sci-fi concept and I really liked the reveal of who/what the Delvers were and how they came to be what they are.  I agree w/ a few other posters that the pacing did feel uneven and sometimes a bit too low stakes but I was also OK with that.  The final explanation of why they behave that way (avoiding lethal weapons, etc) made sense to me.  I also liked the idea of how different characters wrestled with the idea of what to do - should they stay in the Nowhere and find quiet peace at the partial cost of their identity or should they return to the Somewhere and face hardships but have the chance to make a difference.

Anyway, overall I really liked it.

Edited by agrabes
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I think my favorite part of this boon was something I least expected. the lack of physical danger, the lack of the threat of immediate death. 

 

Because as others have said this have not just Spensa, but also M-bot the environment they needed to grow, and this especially gave Spensa the chance to unpack her entire life-worth of trauma, and constantly struggling to survive.

 

I thought this book was going to be one of the first branderson books to not make me outright sob, but when she was struggling with her decision to stay or continue her quest and journey home, and she asked... no, begged, for guilt to force her to go back to her friends

...and all she got was permission, permission to choose, to be and to live and to be selfish for once in her life if she so chose.... that scudding broke me.

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Loved: 

  1. References to Elysium and Jason Write and his blindness and his little bell pin
  2. The reveal that Chet was actually M-Bot's pilot and then the reveal that Chet wasn't actually M-Bot's pilot - screamed both times.  I realized Chet was the pilot when he gave his age, but I didn't quite see the delver thing coming even though I knew something would be coming with him.
  3. Doomslug saying that her reality ashes were poop and thinking of all the times Chet had fondly held and sniffed them!!!!
  4. The reveal that Jason Write's silvery "sphere" was his Baby AI and was actually a Baby Delver!!!  I screamed, again, realizing the truth and what that meant for M-Bot the moment the sphere's spines and tunnels were described.
  5. "I melted a little. Girlfriend? Was that how he thought of me? I mean, we’d kissed. Once. But…I didn’t think it had been formalized or anything. I hadn’t even brought him any dead orc carcasses, which I was pretty sure was the way the stories said to show a guy you wanted to go official."  (Fun Fact:  Just as Spensa is the current pirate champion, I was once the Grand Champion in a carcass show.  I have a trophy and everything!  Alas, not orc carcasses, though.)
  6. “You fly like a sunset, Spensa,” Hesho whispered. “Like a living glimmer of light escaping the horizon at twilight’s last moment.”

Favorite Theory:

Since reality icon ashes, created from taynix in the edges of the Nowhere, humanized DelverChet, could Spensa and Jorgen bring in hundreds of taynix to create mountains of ash to use to humanize the delvers?  The key to reconciling with the delvers, as the memories have hinted, will be Spensa growing in touch and radiating her softer side, which she started to do at the end by accepting delver pain.  Using the ashes could be a way of softening delver hearts, too, in a first step to finding common ground.

Overall:

Nothing will ever live up to the perfection of Skyward, but I will be very put out if all the major characters I love fail to have significant and cohesive roles in Defiant.  The greatest weakness of the 2nd and 3rd books is having to start from scratch character building without relying on pre-existing characters from the series.

Edited by Wit Beyond Measure
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Man, I loved this book. It's more cerebral than the others, and I love the feeling of a quest. It also evoked a ton of other feelings from stories that worked really well for me here. This book is one part Peter pan, one part Alice in Wonderland, another part Wizard of Oz, and one part Neverending story, it also has a big Labyrinth feel to it (David Bowie even got a lampshade reference). Magical girl on quests tropes, but continuously fresh in the execution.

 

I was really impressed that Brandon was able to deliver a story that had low physical stakes, but higher emotional ones. In some respects there is a meta commentary on this with her reflecting on the trashy romance novel. The conflict she feels in wanting to stay is so real, and the decision without guilt was powerful. I also love that we get a story that starts out "too contrived" with spears feeling suspicious, and then luring us into a twist that is both brilliant and beautiful, but not conniving or malicious.

 

I also love these books because Spensa is very similar to Kaladin in some of the motivation and struggles, but she gets a happier journey. I like how she bonds with each new group she meets. And the constant weaponization of empathy is a really fun and moving device as she grows and seeks hard solutions.

 

One last thought. It's been years since I read the enders game books, especially the adult Ender books. But as this series goes on, I find it to be a spiritual successor in many ways. The ultimate weapon is the empathy of the protagonist. The exploration of alien beings different yet similar to us. And the movement of AI towards their own kind of sapience and embodiment. I suspect the series will end with mbot having a similar experience to Jane. Honestly I see this series as an evolution of the sandbox OSC was making, similar to how Brandon has made an evolved sandbox in the fantasy genre. Hats off to him yet again. The GOAT is knocking stories out of the park in different genres. 

 

I'm looking forward to the next novela, and hopefully Defiant soon.

 

P.s. what the hell happened to Cobb?

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@Kingsdaughter613 you captured it so very well. I couldn’t quite put my finger on what I enjoyed so much about this book until your post. It was—just fun. Even the existential stuff felt less existential when I was reading it, which surprised me.

overall, I think the emotion that best captured my reaction to this book was “satisfied”. I’m no Angelica Schuyler apparently. Haha

fav parts: making it clear that the delver Spensa changed was attacked and exiled and the terror wasn’t over. Doomslug (ofc). Chet—why did I love him so so much? That I found myself acting as suspicious as Spensa waiting to be betrayed and realizing that BS took me on the same journey he took her and thinking…you sly dog you.

least fav: taking back the mining base was a bit anticlimactic. Could have made that a bit more dramatic. (But then would it have not been as satisfying per the above?? Lol) 

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Well that was a wild ride. In general I loved it, I couldn’t put it down. I started reading in the early morning, skipped breakfast, and didn’t eat lunch till 2 pm when I finished. The big reveals were crazy, and Brandon finally fulfilled the most ancient Sunreach meme about how the taynix poop. I loved Chet as a character, and loved M-Bot’s advancements, such as him swearing. M-Bot saying “what the hell” was hilarious. Favorite scene was Interlude 2 where Spensa appears to Jorgen in the bathroom :lol:. I definitely didn’t like the M-Bot fakeout though, that was my least favorite part. 

Also Doomslug saying there are “tons” of types of slugs!! Ahhhhhh!!! The bit with them orbiting another planet, makes me even more hyped for Evershore, which I wouldn’t have thought possible! 

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I’m going to say overall, I don’t think I liked this book. With my reread of the series and the novellas, I just realized I enjoyed the Skyward flight more than I did Spensa alone. And this was mostly Spensa “alone” (with new characters). But I will continue to read the series, because it looks like we’re all back together now.

Some specific things I noted:

- I really want to know where Hesho got the name Dark Shadow, because I immediately thought this was Spensa’s father, Zeen Nightshade. Regardless of the small ship and time difference of a new recruit. If it was an intentional red herring, it was a bit of a bludgeon in my opinion.

- The Delvers are a single entity who are going through grief without knowing it or knowing how to handle it. But I don’t remember anyone naming it that, even with their game of naming single emotions after listing a few feelings. I think the key to defeating them will be in helping them (forcefully), recognize and deal with this.

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20 hours ago, Nightfire107 said:

One last thought. It's been years since I read the enders game books, especially the adult Ender books. But as this series goes on, I find it to be a spiritual successor in many ways. The ultimate weapon is the empathy of the protagonist. The exploration of alien beings different yet similar to us. And the movement of AI towards their own kind of sapience and embodiment. I suspect the series will end with mbot having a similar experience to Jane. Honestly I see this series as an evolution of the sandbox OSC was making, similar to how Brandon has made an evolved sandbox in the fantasy genre. Hats off to him yet again. The GOAT is knocking stories out of the park in different genres. 

I haven't kept up with this forum lately so I don't know how much this has been discussed, but I've observed parallels between Card's Outside and Sanderson's nowhere and between Jane and M-Bot since Skyward. M-Bot's development feels so similar to that of Jane that I've assumed the Ender books are a direct influence. Tangentially, the last Ender book finally came out this month, and I'm nervous to read it.

I really enjoyed Cytonic, and don't have many original reactions, but one thing that particularly bothers me in this book (and the last two, to lesser degrees) is the way computer programs are treated. Things like "lines of code" and "commenting out" are human abstractions that aren't part of what a machine actually does, and the way M-Bot and Chet talk about programs just doesn't make any sense. The book reads like it's written by someone who knows very little about how computers, despite how integral they are to the story and worldbuilding. I just had to decide to try to suspend my disbelief on that and enjoy the story, and I'm still excited for Evershore and Defiant. This just makes me worried about Mistborn Eras 3 and 4, because it matters to me a lot more that the Cosmere fully make sense.

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