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"It is splendidly done. The mere verisimilitude of the account, the vivid detail that so accurately suggests the whole of the contemporary scene, is in itself an achievement; but the great merit of the book lies in its scathing irony. The methods practiced in the name of politics, economics, education and all the rest are pilloried, and discomfited by the slings and arrows of outrageous wit. It is magnificent, and if it is not war, it is a massacre, anyway, of the far from innocent."

Christian Science Monitor, 03/02/1937

"The improbable premise is pursued rigorously to its conclusions, through a series of slyly comic scenes in which every kind of early twentieth-century human endeavour is subjected to Capek's courteous, lacerating satire....[W]ith a distinctive wit, Karel Capek writes in a fantastic mode, the better to reflect on pressing realities, and is both preoccupied with the reform of the human race, and bleakly sceptical as to its likelihood. Sixty-five years after this novel's first publication, its unshowy outrage, its humane ironies and its resolve to come to terms with history remain as vital as its despair."

Sam Thompson, Times Literary Supplement, 11/23/2001