The book of Atrus
The book Atrus is the first of the three novels so far that, together with the computer game series Myst by Cyan Worlds, form an epic .
In 1994 Ryan Miller wrote a rough draft, which his brothers Rand and Robyn and Richard van der Wende worked out into a comprehensive concept some time later. David Wingrove was then commissioned to write a novel from it, which was published in 1995 in English and German.
The book Atrus contains a lot of background information about the culture of the D'ni and the characters that appear in the computer games . The main character is Atrus, son of Gehn. The D'ni were a millennia-old civilization in the interior of the earth and, above all, had a highly developed culture of writing : with the help of special magical books they were able to write connection books to other worlds, with the help of which one can travel between an infinite number of ages could, which founded the enormous wealth and wisdom of the D'ni culture.
Chronological classification
Although the parts The Book of Ti'ana and The Book of D'ni appeared after the Book of Atrus , they are to be arranged differently in the chronological order: The Book of Ti'ana contains the "oldest" prehistory of the fall of the D'ni culture and takes place before Atrus' Birth ' The Book of Atrus begins with Atrus' birth and contains the immediate history of the first two computer games, Myst and Riven, and The Book of D'ni tells the continuation of the story of Atrus and his attempts to rebuild D'ni.
Summary of the plot
The book begins with Atrus' birth and is about his childhood and early youth with his grandmother Anna on the surface of the earth. Up to the age of 14 she taught him "the laws of the earth and the stars , the laws of science and nature , that which is good and deserves respect, truths that are unshakable and immortal." (Quotation from The Book of Atrus ) . As a result, Atrus has acquired an unrestricted respect for life, nature and cultures as well as a progressive and analytical way of thinking and learns to some extent the culture of the D'ni in language , philosophy and history .
Atrus also learns the story of the end of the D'ni: In her stories, Anna blamed a woman named Ti'ana for the downfall, because she had put her own conscience before the question of what would have been best for D'ni . However, she shamefully withheld the fact that she was Ti'ana herself. This story is told in the second book in the series The Book of Ti'ana .
One day, Atrus' father Gehn reappears. For the past 14 years he has explored the underground remains of the D'ni culture and experimented with the technique of book-writing. He continued his apprenticeship in the guild of scribes, which was suddenly ended by the fall of the D'ni empire. He now insists that Atrus go with him into the earth to D'ni. Gehn is by no means interested in his son as a person, but only needs him as an assistant to implement his insane plan .
At first, Atrus attributes the uncouth and gruff manner of his father to the many years in solitude and is surprised that Gehn's knowledge deviates from what he derived from what he learned from Anna. But then it becomes clear that Gehn did not understand the culture and philosophy of the D'ni at all: It is not the respect for life and the sensitive use of the science of connecting the worlds that dominate his actions, but the insane striving for power and the desire to be God .
His goal is to revive the kingdom of D'ni - but with himself as godlike ruler over millions of worlds and civilizations. However, with this wrong approach he is not able to create stable worlds. So he wrote one world after another on the principle of trial and error, in the hope that at some point he would find a stable age that would produce a civilization suitable for his purposes. He subjugated the people in the worlds he created, disregarded their cultures and pasts, allowed himself to be celebrated and worshiped as God .
Atrus is horrified. This self-elevation to a divine level is a decisive cause of the broken relationship between the two. Atrus now knows that he must keep his father from his plan in order to prevent the destruction of many ages. A murder of Gehn is out of the question for him out of respect for life and out of the knowledge that nothing good can arise from evil. Instead, he locks his father up for the protection of all worlds in the fifth age - Riven - which you can travel to in the computer game of the same name.
In this context, Atrus also met his future wife Katharina. Katharina and Atrus 'grandmother Anna also forge a plan, as Atrus' plan carries the risk that he too would be trapped forever. So Katharina Atrus presented an era written by her and Anna called Myst, which should be the new home of Atrus and Katharina. The world of Myst is the setting for the first computer game in the Myst saga.
Katharina creates a large crevice in Riven, the star void (in the original: “star fissure”. → fissure ). They manage to lock Gehn up in Riven and flee from there to Myst via a connection book. So that the connection book does not remain on Riven, Atrus falls into the starry void and uses the book according to Myst in free fall.
The connection book fell further into the star void and will eventually fall at the feet of an interested player in the computer game. The computer game Myst can begin (the falling book is visualized in the opening credits of the computer game and the last paragraph of the book corresponds to the words in the opening credits of the game).
literature
- Myst - The Book of Atrus . Bastei Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 2000, ISBN 3-404-20900-1 .