2016 Geek-A-Long: Myst

If you know me in real life or if you’ve been following us since 2014, you’ll know that as a kid I didn’t exactly have my finger on the pulse of popular culture. I was that sort of funny-in-retrospect nerd that would defend claiming a fictional character as my best friend to my dying breath. Honestly, that I’m about to tell you how in love I was with a book that was about popular culture and NOT at least 50 years older than me is the real surprise here.

Anyhow, my local library used to sell off books at a rather alarming rate. Like, there were always SO MANY new (used) books for sale that I have to wonder if they ever bothered to put new donations on the shelves. But for someone that loves to own all the books, I was willing to buy and read almost anything for 25 cents. One summer I bought Myst: The Book of Atrus because I liked the cover. I bought 4 or 5 books a week from them and half the time didn’t even read the back before bringing them home. When a dollar would fill up my Lisa Frank backpack, I could afford to just throw caution to the wind and stuff them in my cart like a hip-hop mogul buying a case of champagne to bath their tea-cup pig in*.

*One assumes that’s the only way to really get them clean.

That book was awesome. Seriously, go read it, it’s fun. There is this guy, Atrus, and his life sucked mostly. But then his deadbeat dad shows up and is all:

Hey son, wanna do some really hardcore world building? We’ll make portals with our words, and it’s gonna be rad. We’ll write these totally cool books and then they will be magic. Also no one else can do it and you are The Special. Everything will be awesome, except the part where I am evil, which you know anyways since I abandoned you as an infant when your mom died, so that’s not even a spoiler. Basically, I’m gonna get really mad that you wanna write in APA while I cling desperately to MLA. My ensuing tantrum will be epic. To the D’ni mobile…. Away!

Okay, true story, I read it as an angsty teen and I’m not 100% sure it’ll hold up as an adult, but I think it will. They have a compendium of all three books now, which this blanket has reminded me to put on my Christmas wish list.

At this point, I assume you are wondering why this is on the blanket this year since we are doing video games and all. All of the Myst novels are based on the Myst game. Which I have not played, but hear great things about. I actually didn’t know they were based on a game until recently and haven’t had a chance to pick up a copy. It’s pretty unusual to have the non-game spin off of a video game be good, and I think that speaks to how good the game must be.

It was nominated to the blanket by Eiram7 who said

I’m not much of a PC gamer, but this game left an impact on me at a fairly young age. Critical thinking and the puzzle / adventure aspect of the game sucked me in hard.

While it didn’t make the final leaderboards, it came very close to doing so, and is one of the squares we added based on your votes! After adding squares from the final leaderboards we were actually able to then add a few more of the runners up because you up-voted many that were already on the blanket.

The square features the falling man who is the main character in the game. It was hard to get this design just right, but I love the final effect.

Whether you’re knitting, crocheting, or cross stitching this square, you can download the Myst pattern here. Instructions for both knit and crochet are listed in the pattern. When you’re finished making it, don’t forget to tweet or instagram your squares at me @Doctor_Llama and Jac @jac_attacking or with the hashtag #geekalong!

If you’re having trouble with double-sided knitting, we have a how-to video here and a tutorial on crochet here. Want to hang out with other people making the blanket? You can find moral support in the Geek-A-Long group on Ravelry here.

~ Megan-Anne
“I know my apprehensions might never be allayed, and so I close, realizing that perhaps the ending has not yet been written.”

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If you enjoyed this post, please consider making a donation to Child’s Play Charity. Here is a direct link to our donation page benefiting the charity. Please help us raise $1,000 this year! No contribution is too small. Wanna make your donation go even further? Louet Yarn is donating 50 cents for every skein of Louet Gems Worsted purchased this year to make a Geek-A-Long blanket. You can get Gems at your Local Yarn Store or through Louet’s website. Just remember to mention the GAL at check out.