Though only our names are on the cover, it would be untrue to say that we wrote this story by ourselves; there were too many other people involved.

Principally, we’d like to thank Richard Vander Wende. His contributions to story development and the creative process were at least equal to our own.

Thanks to Ryan Miller for writing the first book—his contributions set a tone from which we could work.

Also, thanks to John Biggs, Chris Brandkamp, Mark DeForest, Bonnie McDowall, Beth Miller, Josh Staub, and Richard Watson for their input and output.

And finally, thanks to Brian DeFiore, our editor, and David Wingrove for accomplishing the impossible.

A special thanks to the fans of Myst , who’ve waited a long time for this history and helped it to happen. We hope it answers many questions, and raises a few more.