Freelance
TravellerA Note on War With the Newts
This article originally appeared in the September/October 2025 issue.
War With the Newts. Karel
Čapek, trans. Ewald Osers
Translation published: Catbird Press, 1999.
Original text (in Czech) published in 1936
Current Availability: Print, ebook (various translations [some
as Salamander Wars] as well as
original Czech Válka s Mloky)
It’s difficult to know this book is such a classic of science fiction and not think that it must be the source of inspiration for the Bwaps in Traveller. There might be a fair few sf stories with intelligent lizards, but not so many with sentient Salamandridae. To be fair, however, it is ‘inspiration’, rather ‘based on’. It’s clear that Loren Wiseman and William Keith have added their own slant on the creatures and made them their own; eminently suitable for role playing and much loved by many players.
Inspired by Freelance Traveller’s announcement of a theme issue on the Bwaps, it was high time I read War with the Newts. For all that it’s a classic from 1936, I was aware of the title but had never made time to read it. To my shame. I think I thought it would be a rather average gung-ho, boys own adventure of war and all those tedious hours of Traveller combat I could often quite happily skip past. I assumed it would be not dissimilar to Wells’ War of the Worlds as a straightforward invasion narrative. I was wrong. Very wrong. This is much, much better than I was expecting and I can now see why it is a ‘classic’. Of course, I should have known. Čapek isn’t known as a preeminent Czech writer for nothing – not to mention being nominated, though never actually winning, the Nobel prize for literature. If you’ve not come across War with the Newts, you may well have heard of his play, R.U.R. (or Rossum’s Universal Robots [Rossumovi Univerzálni Roboti in Czech]) from 1920, which introduced the word ‘robot’. I read that some years ago but now regret not making more of an effort to extend my reading of his work. Given when War with the Newts was written, on the eve of Nazi expansion, it’s perhaps not surprising that this deliberate allegory of colonialism, capitalism, exploitation, and ultimately fascism is remembered as a classic. Rather than ‘combat’ it’s much more about us humans destroying ourselves through greed and shortsightedness.
I should note that I was reading War with the Newts in English translation as my limited Czech would have struggled with the original. However, from what I could tell, Osers has provided a good translation that for the most part captures the fun Čapek was having with language as well as the story.
War With the Newts isn’t an ordinary novel. It doesn’t follow a main character throughout the book – unless the Newts themselves count as the ‘main character’. It’s in three parts: “Andrias Scheuchzeri”, “Up the Ladder of Civilisation” and “War with Newts” and it’s an epistolary novel, used in its wider sense of not just being a collection of letters making up the book, but a collection of fictional documents. Čapek was a journalist as well as a novelist so it is also not surprising that this is a collage of reports, business cards, a receipt, news articles and letters of course. In this it’s not dissimilar to Dracula by Bram Stoker or Frankenstein by Mary Shelley which may not have originated the form – it goes back much further than that – but which certainly made it familiar to science fiction readers. It is one way the book feels remarkably modern. What fascinated me about this when I saw what was going on is that it almost makes the book read like a Traveller sourcebook for Newts and it would be very easy to take inspiration from many sections of the novel either for Bwap adventure handouts, or more generally for other adventures in Charted Space or elsewhere. There’s even an appendix, in the middle of the book as it concludes ‘Book One’, on ‘The Sex Life of the Newts’. Don’t get too excited, it’s really not very prurient. This was 1936 after all.
For Travellers, Referees or players, who are familiar with rabbit holes in their games, I’m also wondering if Čapek was either a gamer or has inspired gamers. There are some wonderful sidetracks such as a scene with some wealthy dilettantes which gets lost for just a moment in two attractive women’s legs; a ‘collector’ that many will sympathise with; and at another point a delightful poking of fun at the Czech language not being one of the largest in the world.
You might think that the fragmentary nature of the book makes it less interesting to read as it is harder to get involved in the characters who only appear briefly – although Captain van Toch, who kicks off the book, is something of a ghost who haunts the remaining pages long after he’s no longer on the scene. However, the writing is better than that, it’s not really fragmentary at all – but very cleverly ‘joined up’, and Čapek is able to make you care about those characters you might see only for a chapter. I found the story of the Newt Andy for example, who reads newspapers in a zoo, quite moving.
The other thing I found surprising, after the sheer excellence of the novel, is just how funny it is. True, it’s very dry, dark humour but I had to contain myself reading this in just three commutes on public transport. There are some genuinely funny moments – even in a book that’s nigh on a century old – and some terrific observations of the foibles of humans. The author uses the Newts to show this up well and I’d like to hope that I’ve used Traveller games and themes within them to do similar, but I don’t believe I’ve ever done it anywhere near this well. Having said that, the reader should be warned that the book is nearly 100 years old and some of the language used and the viewpoints expressed would not be published today. Fortunately, it’s relatively limited but it will shock readers of a more delicate nature. Just to be clear, it’s always in the mouths of characters and I’m pretty sure that Čapek was aware of what he was doing and adding to his satire of human nastiness. He’s excoriating on the subject of slavery, war and thoughtless technological progress. A third surprise was just how contemporary some of his lampooning was. Sad to say, humans haven’t changed much in a hundred years.
How Bwappish are the Newts? There are differences. Čapek’s are not interested in bureaucracy and certainly in the first section of the novel wouldn’t appear to be inclined in anything of the sort; they don’t wear kaftans; and if War With the Newts mentioned them being unable or unwilling to lie, I missed it. The biggest difference is that Čapek’s Newts are a mirror for human flaws whereas the Bwaps are deliberately neutered of politics; they’re bureaucratic helpers, not satirical weapons. But it does raise the interesting idea of running Bwaps in a satirical way like that. Would that work in role playing? Or be too grim? I’d certainly be interested in hearing of Referees who had tried it.
There are lots of similarities however. “Newts are Newts,” says one character. Their size and appearance are the same, both Newts and Bwaps tend towards conservatism (which is “natural to Newtism”) and are hardworking, their need for the damp is there“Newts are eminently suitable even for work on dry land, subject only to two conditions: that they are not exposed to direct sunlight and that they are hosed down with water over the whole surface of their bodies at frequent intervals.”, lack of concern for nudity is identical, the lack of any immediate desire for conflict is present“… it would make a first-rate, almost indestructible, warfare animal; unfortunately its peacefulness and defencelessness militate against such use.”, regeneration of limbs is common to bothThough to the best of my skim read through the Traveller sources, regeneration of limbs doesn’t actually appear in the Traveller Bwaps lore until Aliens of Charted Space: Volume 3. War With the Newts reports: “If a Newt has its tail cut off it will grow a new one within a fortnight… The same is true if one of its eyes is removed or its tongue cut out.” Unfortunately, parts of the novel are grim enough that this happens. There’s an example of Čapek’s black humour in one line in the novel where a Newt being dragged away by slavers and loses its leg. “‘Never mind,’ muttered old Mike who was next to me. ‘He’ll soon grow another.’”, and there’s no ‘nation’ or polity of Newts but a thorough spreading amongst humans which felt very familiar. Oh, and the name of course. From their very first mention for Traveller in The Journal of the Travellers’ Aid Society [GDW], no.11 in 1981 where the article introducing them is “Contact! Newts”, an appellation that carried through to Marc Millers’ Traveller (Aliens Archive) and GURPS Traveller but is not present in Aliens of Charted Space: Volume 3 for Mongoose Traveller. It would seem it’s now either deeply unfashionable to use the term ‘newt’ or it’s become derogatory.
While War With the Newts probably won’t help you to role play Newts any better, it might well give you some fascinating ideas for characters, and it will probably teach you at least something about the family Salamandridae. Even if that’s of no immediate use this is still highly recommended just for the enjoyment of reading it but also the excellence of how Čapek pokes fun at human stupidity through his wonderful creation. You might even get ideas for how you could do similar to make your own Traveller games more incisive. Finally, I was inspired by Čapek’s genius at shifting tone between playful parody to pretty devastating political commentary – I could only marvel at how lightly and playfully he did that and envy doing anything similar. War With the Newts is not long, it’s very readable and of course there’s an appendix on the sex life of the Newts if you need it.