Book 75: "War With the Newts" by Karel Capek
Tuesday, September 29th, 2009 10:56![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kittiwakeSay what you will, the Newts have brought enormous progress to the world, as well as an idea called Quantity. 'We people of the Newt Age,' is a phrase uttered with justified pride; good heavens, how can you compare us with that outmoded Human Age with its ponderous, finicky and useless fuss that went by the name of culture, the arts, pure science, and what have you! Real, self-assured Newt Age people will no longer waste their time meditating on the Essence of Things; they will be concerned solely with numbers and mass production.
It all starts when some pacific islanders warn a Czech sea captain against going to Devil Bay in his search for pearls. What he finds there is a group of enormous newts that can walk on their hind-legs and seem strangely intelligent. He gives them knives to defend themselves against sharks in return for bringing him pearl oysters, and then starts shipping them to other islands to dive for oysters there.
From this small beginning, the newts that were originally found on just one atoll, gradually colonise the coastlines of the world, as first businessmen and then governments find them useful for underwater building, dredging harbours and defending their coasts. But the newts are much more intellgent than originally thought, and as one female can produce 100 young each year, the situation is unlikely to stay stable for long.
A 1930s satire on politics, slavery, science and much more, by the author who first invented the robot. Very good indeed!
It all starts when some pacific islanders warn a Czech sea captain against going to Devil Bay in his search for pearls. What he finds there is a group of enormous newts that can walk on their hind-legs and seem strangely intelligent. He gives them knives to defend themselves against sharks in return for bringing him pearl oysters, and then starts shipping them to other islands to dive for oysters there.
From this small beginning, the newts that were originally found on just one atoll, gradually colonise the coastlines of the world, as first businessmen and then governments find them useful for underwater building, dredging harbours and defending their coasts. But the newts are much more intellgent than originally thought, and as one female can produce 100 young each year, the situation is unlikely to stay stable for long.
A 1930s satire on politics, slavery, science and much more, by the author who first invented the robot. Very good indeed!
