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Karel Capek – RUR and War with the Newts | Review

Title: RUR and War with the Newts

Author: Karel Capek

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 358

Rating: 4*/5

Karel Capek – RUR and War With the Newts

This book was on course for a 5/5 but then about a third of the way through it did the same thing that George Orwell did in 1984 where the action suddenly cuts out so there can be pages and pages of background information. In 1984, it was a detailed history of the different nations in the postapocalyptic future. In this book, the equivalent is a lengthy section that reads like an essay on how the newts reproduce and how they act during scientific experiments.

Still, this is a great little read, and there’s something here for everyone – but particularly for fans of classic science fiction. It also has the benefit of basically being two books in one. Let’s take a look at each of them.

RUR is short for ‘Rossum’s Universal Robots’ and it’s credited with introducing the word ‘robot‘ to our vocabulary. It’s also a stage play, which makes it easy to absorb and highly entertaining, and I just flew through the pages and loved the whole thing from start to finish. I particularly liked how it posed the question of who’s ultimately responsible for the actions of a piece of software or a machine. Is it the machine itself, or is it the human who designed and created it?

Karel Capek

War With the Newts contains many of the same themes, except this time it’s focusing on a species of intelligent newts that humanity discovers and subsequently takes advantage of until they eventually rise up against them. What’s interesting here is that the war itself doesn’t take up much of the book, but rather it tends to focus on the events that led up to the war and humanity’s role in them. It’s very cleverly done, but like I said – there’s a lengthy bit in the middle that gets kind of tedious, and I found it difficult to pick up momentum again after that.

Still, though, this is definitely worth reading – especially for hardcore sci-fi fans. I’m definitely glad I picked it up.

Karel Capek Quote

Click here to buy RUR and War with the Newts.

George R. R. Martin – A Game of Thrones | Review

Title: A Game of Thrones

Author: George R. R. Martin

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 806

Rating: 10/10

George R. R. Martin – A Game of Thrones

Okay, okay – I admit it. I was late to Game of Thrones, and I didn’t pick up the first book in the series until after the fifth season had aired, although I hadn’t seen the show before I started reading. I’m a purist like that – I knew I wanted to watch the show, and I also knew that I wanted to read the books before I started watching it, and so I somehow ended up letting Game of Thrones pass me by, whilst everyone else was getting obsessed with it.

But now I’m catching up. I actually waited to start reading the series until I found this, the first book in the series, in a charity shop. I’m not sure why – so many copies have been printed that the price is pretty low in general, and so it’s not much more to snag a copy from Amazon. Either way, as soon as I started reading it, I was hooked.

That was a month ago. I started reading it because I was moving house, and I needed to finish off my packing – I thought this would be a good book to start reading because it’s ridiculously long, and so it kept me busy for the week leading up to the move and the week after it. To be honest, that’s the only thing that I can think of that could stop someone from reading this – it does take a large time commitment, a bit like Tolkien does. But where Martin is different to Tolkien is that Tolkien’s books read like a history textbook; Martin’s books are alive and vibrant with character and plot, and that’s what keeps you turning the pages.

George R.R. Martin

It’s also interesting to note that he tells the story by alternating the perspective between different chapters. Here, we only hear from half a dozen or so different characters, but it’s fascinating to see how the stories intermingle and how Martin wove them together to form a complex fantasy world that some people have likened to the murky politics of the English Wars of the Roses. I disagree – Martin’s work is even more detailed than that, and yet despite the way that the history of the realm plays a key part in this book, it still never feels dull to turn the pages.

Now, I don’t want to talk about the plot too much, because there are too many spoilers that I could give away. That said, if you’ve seen the TV series then you should know what you’re in for – death, war, incest, rape, and that’s just in the first third of the novel. I was pretty impressed by how true to the books the series was, although Peter Dinklage’s Tyrion doesn’t really fit with how I imagined him. Some of the characters are older in the show than they are in the books, too.

In a way, Martin’s decision to tell parts of his story through the eyes of youngsters, like 10-year-old Arya Stark, is a bold one. Younger characters are pretty common in young adult novels, but not so much in high fantasy – bringing the two together could potentially have muddled the waters, but rest assured. As soon as you start reading A Game of Thrones, you realise that this isn’t the case at all – it’s definitely a piece of high fantasy, and it’s up there with the best on the market.

George R. R. Martin and Peter Dinklage

And the thing is, I’m not just saying that because of the show – the show is great and so are the books, and I’d say that the books have a slight edge over the show, although that might just be because I’ve been reading them first. I would say that, if you’re thinking about it, it’s better to read the books first because they take a large time commitment, and if you already know what’s going to happen then it’s going to be more difficult for you to stick with it.

Overall, though, I thought this was a fantastic start to the series, and it’s interesting how you can become so attached to a character in a single book, and so upset when they don’t make it into the second book of the series. It’s a testament to Martin’s ability as a writer that even some of the lesser characters have fully developed personalities. It’s also interesting to see how both plot and character play a part in his stories.

So go, go, go and buy A Game of Thrones – even if you pick it up and don’t finish it, at least you started it. Martin’s writing is so enjoyable to read that he might keep you powering through until the end. It worked for me!