Karel Čapek

RUR & War With the Newts

Two dystopian satires from one of the most distinguished writers of 20th-century European science fiction. RUR is the work that first introduced the word `robot` into popular usage. Written against the background of the rise of Nazism, War With the Newts concerns the discovery in the South Pacific of a sea-dwelling race, which is enslaved and exploited by mankind. In time they rebel, laying siege to the strongholds of their former masters in a global war for supremacy. RUR, or Rossum`s Universal Robots, seen by many as a modern interpretation of the `golem` myth, is regarded as the most important play in the history of SF. It introduced the word `robot` and gave the genre one of its most enduring tropes.