War with the Newts

Plot

When Captain van Toch discovers giant, intelligent newts on a remote island off Sumatra, he teaches them to use knives to find food, fight off sharks, and collect pearls for him. When he dies, his partners turn his friendly venture into a huge interantional business with the news rapidly growing in numbers and with the tools and supplies for them. The newts are taught to read, to build massiver underwater projects, and to protect the shores of the coutries that bought them. They bbecome an essential and powerful part of the industrial machine. They become an essential and powerful part of the industrial machine, and thus warnings about their potential danger to humankind go unheeded.

An unjustly forgotten masterpiece of anti-utopian fantasy that is possibly the equal of Orwell's Animal Farm. By turns hilarious and grim, but consistenly and scathilngy insightful into the nature of human nature, and a book that you simply must read.