Válka s mloky

Imagine smart lizards called newts that people find in the ocean near a sunny island. At first, grown-ups teach them to find shiny pearls and build stuff because they're super good workers and don't complain. But the newts learn fast, get strong, make their own armies with big guns and boats, and start a huge war to take over the world from silly humans who thought they could boss them around forever!

Karel Čapek's 'Válka s mloky' (War with the Newts), published in 1936, is a prescient satirical novel that begins with the discovery of intelligent salamanders—newts—off the coast of a fictional tropical island near Sumatra by businessman Andreas Bondy. These amphibians, capable of standing upright and learning human tasks, are quickly exploited by colonial powers for pearl diving, leading to mass breeding programs and their industrialization as cheap labor. Bondy and bank clerk Jan Povondra oversee the burgeoning trade, which evolves into training the newts in warfare and engineering, mirroring humanity's ruthless capitalism and imperialism. As the newts gain autonomy, forming oligarchies and demanding land reclamation through rising sea levels, the narrative escalates into global conflict. Nations arm the newts against each other, only for the creatures to unite in a revolutionary war, deploying advanced weaponry and sinking continents. Čapek masterfully critiques fascism, militarism, and environmental hubris, culminating in a bleak vision of human downfall, where the newts dismantle civilization in a darkly comic apocalypse, underscoring the perils of exploitation and shortsighted progress.