Writer
He published his first novel, Boží soud (1935, about village life), under pen name Jan Merfort. Later (1936 – 1943) he used pen name J. M. Troska (Troska means a ruin in Czech, to point out his physical suffering) and published mostly sci-fi novels. In these novels Matzal freely ignored rules of physics, used very simple and naive language, employed dramatic situations and many novel ideas of his time (powerful robots, huge underground cities constructed inside the Hollow Earth, nuclear weapons, automatically guided missiles, interplanetary travels, cosmic empires, aliens and telepathy). His books were very popular among by children and teenagers: they are similar to fairy tales where characters are crystal clear and the good always wins.
The books were illustrated by Zdeněk Burian (covers) and Jiří Wowk. Some of his books were reprinted in 1960–70 (illustrated by Miloš Novák) and 1990–2000 (illustrated by Teodor Rotrekl).
Read more about this topic: Jan Matzal Troska
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