Ivy Allie

Myst in Retrospect

Newly revised and expanded for the 30th anniversary of the series in 2023, Myst in Retrospect is a collection of essays exploring the groundbreaking adventure game series. Covering the good and the bad, the sublime and the bizarre, it's a journey that's familiar yet new, part nostalgic ramble, part retrospective.

These essays began as a series of posts on my blog that ran from 2012 through 2013. The first print edition was published in 2016. The new 2023 edition features original illustrations for every chapter, a new essay about the history of Myst re-makes (including Myst in VR), and additional material throughout.

Essay index

  1. Myst.
  2. The Book of Atrus.
  3. Riven.
  4. The Book of D'ni.
  5. Exile.
  6. Revelation.
  7. The Book of Ti'ana.
  8. Uru: Ages Beyond Myst.
  9. Uru: To D'ni.
  10. Uru: The Path of the Shell.
  11. End of Ages.
  12. The Remaking of Myst. Masterpiece Editions, realMyst, and VR
  13. The Great Tree of Possibilities. Final thoughts on the series.

Fireplace

Acknowledgements

For the first edition:

First and foremost, I’d like to thank the people who read this series when it first ran on my blog, especially those who took the time to write thoughtful comments. Without you I likely would never have created this book.

Special thanks to Michael Maresch, whose library of Myst ephemera was invaluable, and to Carolyn Addison, who critiqued the first draft of the feminism chapter.

For the second edition:

Special thanks to my editor, Kevin Fitzpatrick, whose insights helped immensely in strengthening and perfecting the book. He didn’t know much about Myst at the beginning of this project, but he does now, by God.

Thanks also to Masha Zhdanova for one last round of typo-hunting.

Thanks to Adrian Neville for volunteering to create the ePub version of the book, which was also used to create the online HTML version.