Jan Matzal Troska

During World War I he was sent to the front because of attempt[citation needed] to cover up a sabotage by factory workers.

He published his first novel, Boží soud (1935, about village life), under the pen name Jan Merfort.

In these novels Matzal freely ignored rules of physics, used very simple and naïve language, and employed dramatic situations and many new ideas of his time (powerful robots, huge underground cities constructed inside a Hollow Earth, nuclear weapons, automatically guided missiles, interplanetary travels, cosmic empires, aliens and telepathy).

His books were very popular among children and teenagers: they are similar to fairy tales, where characters are crystal clear and the good always wins.

A main-belt asteroid 17776 Troska discovered in 1998 by Czech astronomer Petr Pravec from the Ondřejov Observatory was named after the writer.