On every page, the disaster creeps further and further along, and the movement is as deliberate as the inexorable gears of some great machine. War with the Newts examines the problem of fate and determinism with a new boldness. War with the Newts sprang from a scribbled sentence: “You mustn’t think that the evolution that gave rise to our form of life was the only evolutionary possibility on this planet.” Čapek had dabbled in philosophical science fiction before indeed, he is probably best known for coining the word “robot” in his satirical play R.U.R. Čapek grew up in the last years of the 19th century, an era that codified “survival of the fittest” as the iron law of nature, paving the way for the Nazis’ ideology of racial elitism. That year, the Olympics were held in Berlin, and the Nazis exulted in an opportunity to proclaim the biological superiority of the master race. Disaster comes bit by bit, at the hands of one of the least threatening creatures on earth: the newt.Įven in 1936, there was still time to stop what became inevitable. In his 1936 novel War with the Newts, Čapek unfolds the slowest apocalypse in all of literature. The Czech writer Karel Čapek had been one of those voices crying out in protest. When the tanks finally rolled in, few were truly surprised. The Nazis inspired fear and disgust with their surprise attacks, and built their whole military around a doctrine of “lightning war.” Yet for nearly 20 years, fascism had been a political force on the continent, and protesters had criticized and resisted it ceaselessly. In almost every case it is a surging crowd - the overwhelming swarm.īut disaster does not come without warning. Annihilation rushes on the scene in various forms: zombies or communists, terrorists or apes, dope fiends or aliens.

THE GREAT MISCONCEPTION about the apocalypse is that it comes all at once.

Author of sci fi war with the newts