The First Myst Book is Slow but Good

Myst: The Book of Atrus is a slow-moving book. I was tempted to give up after the first hundred pages, but I’m glad I kept reading because it is a fun story. It also sets up the events of the first game in the series. After reading this, I’m looking forward to the other books in the Myst series.

Slow Build and Confusion

I had no idea what was happening in the Prologue and the first three chapters. If I had played the game or looked into its lore, I would’ve known what was happening and who the people were. I would have been lost if I had just picked up the book without knowing anything about the game.

It also took a while for the story to get going. It starts with Atrus being born, his mom dying, and his father wandering off. It wasn’t totally clear right away who these people were, aside from Ghen. It did become clear during the following chapters, but I was baffled by the prologue.

We then skip ahead to Atrus, who is growing up, living with his grandmother, Anna, and learning some random things from Anna. She is teaching Atrus to think more about the world and be creative to solve problems. This plays into things later in the book but seems random initially.

For example, we get a story about a rainstorm. It seems to come out of nowhere, but it does come up a few times later in the book when Atrus thinks about what he learned from Anna. She taught him about the environment and how things work together to create a world.

After a few experiments, Ghen returns to take Atrus to the D’ni Empire, or at least its ruins. We get two stories about how the D’ni Empire ended. Anna tells one, and Ghen tells the other. Both stories agree that our characters are the only D’ni left in the world.

By following Atrus, the reader learns about the D’ni ability to create and travel to new worlds through books. There are a bunch of rules given to us as well, but none of that is very important. What is important is how Atrus and Ghen create worlds.

Ghen has little to no imagination, loves rules, and hates descriptions. He doesn’t fully understand what he is doing and only uses words from other books to create his worlds. Atrus picks up on this as he learns of the instability in the worlds that Ghen has created.

Let me back up a bit. The D’ni create new worlds by writing descriptions of the world in a special book. The descriptions need to be specific, and they can’t have any contradictions, or else the world becomes unstable and collapses. We get an example of this by exploring “Ghen’s 37^th Age” or the 37^th world Ghen made. Over the course of a few chapters, it falls apart, and Ghen restarts it.

Atrus is more creative in the world he creates. He also develops his own phrases and descriptions without relying on finding them in books. This drives a wedge between the two of them and leads to Ghen imprisoning his son.

This is when the two tales of the D’ni Empire’s end taking place. We learn that Anna is blamed for causing the empire to fall. Ghen’s word is all we have on this, so take that for what it is worth.

When Atrus is imprisoned, he is given a book to the 5^th Age, where the Riven is located. He learns that this is one of the locations where Ghen trains the people who live there to make worlds. Ghen also sets himself up as a god in an attempt to recreate the D’ni Empire.

On Riven, we get introduced to Katran/Cathrine. Depending on the character we’re following, her name is spelled differently. I have no idea why this was done. It was a little annoying at first.

To wrap this up, Atrus, Cathrine, and Anna trap Ghen on Riven as the world falls apart. Our three heroes end up on Myst, which Cathrine created. This is when we get the rest of the story about how Cathrine and Anna met and devised a plan to stop Ghen. This is where the story ends, and you would go into the first game.

Final Thoughts

I was a little torn about this book. There were parts that I found fascinating, but it was a slow-moving story with little to no action in the game. We also only see a handful of the worlds created by Ghen, Atrus, and Cathrine, and there is little to no information about the world they currently live in.

While some history is given about the D’ni, much of it is kept from the reader. We do learn a little about it as bits and pieces are given to Atrus, but not much. I was more interested in hearing about the exploration of the ruins of the D’ni Empire.

It also felt like we didn’t really get to know much about Anna and Ghen. They have an odd relationship, and it was tied to how the D’ni Empire ended. What we don’t learn about is Ghen’s father, the culture of the D’ni, and what happened to Ghen to make him so delusional.

After reading this book, I had a few questions. I hope they will be answered in the other two books or when I look into the games more. I love the ideas in the book and games, but I don’t know much about them yet.

If you liked this blog post, consider checking out my review, Hell: a Cyberpunk Thriller or the Wizardry Novel.