War with the Newts

War with the Newts also translated as Salamander Wars, is a 1936 satirical science fiction novel by Czech author Karel Čapek. It concerns the discovery of a species of giant, intelligent newts and how humanity learns to exploit them so successfully that the newts gain skills and arms enough to challenge man's place at the top of the animal kingdom. Along the way, Karel Capek satirizes science, runaway capitalism, fascism, journalism, militarism and Hollywood.