Verzum

With illustrations by Jakub Řídký

How long can we escape reality before we lose ourselves?

A sci-fi story from a future that could have begun yesterday.

In the near future, technology not only shapes reality but also rivals it. Viktor, a pensioner from Liberec, spends long hours in an artificial world called Verzum, where everything is just as he imagines. No funerals or class reunions. No empty flat, abandoned by his wife and daughter. Far away from an era he doesn't understand and problems that overwhelm him. Away from a world where he doesn't belong. But even in the virtual Verzum, he can't escape his past.

Tomáš Miklica was born in 1991 in Liberec. He is a graduate of journalism at Charles University in Prague, works as an advertising creative, and occasionally writes about culture. He was behind the Google Poetry project and the collection Written by Autocomplete. He made his solo debut in 2023 with the novella Polistopad.