Identify About Books The Book of Atrus (Myst #1)

Title:The Book of Atrus (Myst #1)
Author:Rand Miller
Book Format:Mass Market Paperback
Book Edition:Anniversary Edition
Pages:Pages: 422 pages
Published:November 1st 1996 by Hyperion (first published January 1st 1995)
Categories:Fantasy. Fiction. Science Fiction
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The Book of Atrus (Myst #1) Mass Market Paperback | Pages: 422 pages
Rating: 4.02 | 5204 Users | 283 Reviews

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3.5 stars, but I'm happy to round up for this obscure little book that's been mostly forgotten.



Readers and writers of sci-fi and fantasy will often mention "worldbuilding": the process of developing a world that is different from the one we live in. It's less common to see fictional characters grappling with those issues themselves, but that's exactly what this novel is about.

Atrus was raised by his grandmother, in an isolated dwelling in the desert. He spends his time studying the environment, growing food, and generally being content with life until the day his father, Gehn, arrives to claim him as an apprentice. Gehn is obsessed with reviving a practice known simply as the Art: the writing of magical books that form portals to other worlds. Atrus, however, has more questions than Gehn is willing to answer. Is the writer creating worlds, or simply creating bridges to worlds that already exist? And what responsibility does the writer owe to those who inhabit these worlds? Gehn uses his powers to play god, while Atrus uses his powers to try to repair the damage, causing the relationship between father and son to fray. In some ways it's the usual bildungsroman, but unique in the way that entire parallel worlds mature alongside our main character.

The reason I picked up this book is that it's based on the Myst videogame, which was one of my best-loved games as a kid. Part of what made the game so addictive was the worldbuilding: by solving puzzles, you discover portal books that transport you to worlds that are eerie, enchanting, and mostly empty of other humans. In that atmosphere of isolation, the slightest trace of any other character would make my heart pound. So, it was hard to resist a book about what those characters had been up to, but I was still skeptical about whether a book based on a videogame could possibly be any good.

I was pleasantly surprised. The writing, at first, seems a little too detailed in its descriptiveness, but it was easy enough to get used to and I think it's somewhat meta: when Atrus starts writing his own books, there are many discussions about how much detail a writer needs to use when crafting a stable, functioning world. I also think it's a trait inherited from the book's videogame predecessor; when playing a game, one is acutely aware of what's visible from each vantage point of an island, and how many steps it takes to get from point A to point B. And even though the book deals with the art of worldbuilding, there's science involved too - gravity, soil composition, and temperature all influence whether a world is habitable, and the story doesn't shy away from taking these technicalities into consideration.

Character-wise, the contrast between Atrus and Gehn highlights different modes of learning and creativity. Gehn is all about rote learning and collecting pieces from pre-existing works, whereas Atrus is more concerned with uncovering underlying principles and looking at a system as a whole. Finally, I really enjoyed the little twist on gender roles. Much of the book is about men engaged in manly activities of pioneering, engineering, and wrangling for power, while women play the role of caretakers, and are kept on the sidelines lest they get hurt. When we discover that these women are actually pioneers and engineers to at least the same extent as the men are, I pretty much clapped with glee. This is one of the few cases where I wouldn't mind reading a companion novel that covers the same timeframe but from a different point of view, because there's a lot going on that I would have liked to learn more about.

Itemize Books Toward The Book of Atrus (Myst #1)

Original Title: The Book of Atrus
ISBN: 0786881887 (ISBN13: 9780786881888)
Edition Language: English
Series: Myst #1
Literary Awards: Audie Award for Multi-Voiced Performance (1996)

Rating About Books The Book of Atrus (Myst #1)
Ratings: 4.02 From 5204 Users | 283 Reviews

Crit About Books The Book of Atrus (Myst #1)
As Howard Cosell titled his autobiography, I never played the game. I dont even have a CD-ROM drive yet. But I would have had to have been living in a fissure in the earth to be totally clueless about MYST, the phenomenally popular CD-ROM game that has become multimedias first bestseller and first classic. From people who have played it, I know that MYST is more than a game, it is an experiencean immersion into another world, where things are strange and wonderful. The game works, they say,

I enjoyed reading The Book of Atrus and am moving right along to the Book of Ti'ana. The Book of Atrus was a little slow moving, but I think that's what the entire world of Myst is: explore, experiment, discover. The book really on ever involved two characters at one time which I think contributed to the slowness: Atrus and Anna; Atrus and Ghen; Atrus and Catherine.I love the world of Myst and so was determined to get through the book. I don't' think that people who are not familiar with Myst

Video review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQKQv...What sparks an interest in a book? Its different for everyone. I love it when a story that begins one way morphs into something completely different and unexpected. This is not to say I like a story thats unbelievable or has leaps in logic. No, Im talking about characters who do something that make your eyes pop out of your head or the author that takes a hard right turn and destroys all your expectations, but in a good way. Myst: The Book of

Once again I find myself drawn to the series of Myst. Its lore, its wonder and the shear, mind bending thought of how someone thought of this in the first place. The book opens in the sandy deserts and the life of a young Atrus, still a boy and far from the happenings of the first Myst game. After a loving, peaceful life in the desert presided over by his grandmother, Anna, a strange figure appears at their quiet desert home. A tall, pale man who claims to be Atrus's father, Gehn. After 14

Anna is the only person young Atrus has ever known. His mother died in childbirth. His father, Gehn, abandoned Atrus immediately after, leaving him to his grandmother to raise or bury. Gehn didnt really care which. Anna chooses the former, making a home with her grandson in a dormant volcano in the midst of the desert. Together they tease a garden from the reluctant earth, ration their precious water, and scavenge the surrounding area for anything they might sell to traders in exchange for salt,

Ill admit, I was a big Myst fan in my teens and early twenties. The original was one of the first games I played on a Pentium PC, and I somehow managed to solve it on my own without the aid of the pitiful internet of the mid-90s. That said, I certainly understand that nostalgia might bias my view of Myst: The Book of Atrus. Quite frankly, whether that bias subconsciously improved my review of the novel or not, I dont care. This was a tight, excellent read, and I wish I had read it before delving

As exciting to read as it was to play.