A chillingly realistic YA sci-fi dystopia from a world of war, environmental destruction and migration

Children’s and Young Adult

Fourteen-year-old Jony spends his time like most of the other “juniors”: in the safety of a Europe which is cut off from the rest of the world by a massive wall; he goes to a school where the teaching is done mostly using virtual reality, and in his free time he browses online games. He lets his life be run by the System, which knows what is best for everyone, what they should eat, drink, experience and feel. But then things begin to happen which force him to take off his rose-tinted digital spectacles. The teacher František Tichý has moved away from the Terezín Ghetto of his previous books (Transport to Eternity, 2017, Magnesia Litera Award; The Labyrinth of Endless Encounters, 2020), and in this final book of his loose trilogy he ventures forth to a dystopian world in the near future where freedom and individuality are completely subservient to the dictates of the Orwellian state machinery and the System. This gripping story manages to pose complex questions about the relationship between individual freedom and personal responsibility, and the limits and dangers of “enhancing” technologies. What impresses the most is the detailed worldbuilding of a believable future, elegantly captured in Stanislav Setinský’s illustrations, and a hypermodern language which Tichý imbues with Anglicisms both existing and invented by the author.

Age 13+

Read an excerpt from the book here.