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A review by ericsmooth
War with the Newts by Karel Čapek
4.0
The day I first heard of this book was the day I started reading it. Written in the late 1930s by a Czech author who watched the rise of the Nazi power, this is fantastic WWII-related (I'm becoming increasingly aware of how much I like that type of thing) speculative fiction along the lines of 1984 or Brave New World. Like those other dystopian tales, the ultimate fall of civilization and culture is due to our own flaws as humanity. Although I felt it was a little slow in the middle section ('Book 2', in which the rise of Newt Civilization is detailed a liiiiittle too exhaustively), the beginning was super strong and the last chapter is amazing. I would think it was unprecedented, and I won't say what it is but I will say I can definitely see why Kurt Vonnegut enjoyed his work.