One of the great anti-utopian satires of the twentieth century, an
inspiration to writers from Orwell to Vonnegut, at last in a modern
translation. Man discovers a species of giant, intelligent newts and
learns to exploit them so successfully that the newts gain skills and
arms enough to challenge man's place at the top of the animal kingdom.
Along the way, Karel Capek satirizes science, runaway capitalism,
fascism, journalism, militarism, even Hollywood.