WAR WITH THE NEWTS, by Karel Capek

It's hard to believe that this extremely inventive work was written way back in 1936 by a Czech writer, Karel Capek, who is largely unknown in the US. The book is one in a series of resurrected forgotten works called Central European Classics, published by Penguin. War With the Newts is so outrageous and bizarre, and so fun and ironic, that it is more "postmodern" than a lot of typical postmodern works. Of course it can also be read as a kind of political allegory highlighting the absurdity of Czech and 30's world politics.  In fact, the overall characteristic of many of the Central European Classics is their love of irony and clever encoding of political satire - a necessity I guess given the history of the past 70 years in that part of the world. The book is a dystopian fantasy couched as a true history of the discovery and rise of an intelligent species of newts (yes, salamanders) that rise up and eventually battle with humans for domination of the earth! There are "newspaper articles" and scholarly citations, etc. to complete the effect, all the more absurd considering the subject matter of the story. It's a wonderful, clever, inventive and thought-provoking piece - a rare combination.

Click here for a review of the book from SFFWorld: http://www.sffworld.com/brevoff/790.html