[Gamlemshagen]

Well, I have read War with the newts. Anybody read any of his other stuff?
Is it readable?

[mundanemies]

Depends.
Karel Capek's most famous writings are his plays. Like R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) which is the one he coined the word "robot".
Very interesting stuff from the Olden Days. Capek died just prior to WW2 and his brother Josef, with whom Karel wrote most of his works, died in Belsen in April 1945 - sad story. Capek's are a good example of non-anglo-SF, where ideas and intelligence matters more than action and scientific facts. Slavic SF is very interesting and deserves to be more known: Strugatskijs (Stalker, Solaris), Lem (everything!), Bylutsev, Jefremov, Zamjatin ("We" is a classic).

[Gamlemshagen]

ye, I knew about capek and the robot, czech word that ment (not willing)worker.
Im not in very known terretory conserning your list. Mostly what I have read of eastern writers are from collections of shortstories, but Im planning an trip to the library so...
btw-didnt lem write solaris?

[mundanemies]

Yes. Lem did write Solaris, my mistake http://www.sffworld.com/ubb/frown.gif here. Solaris, Cyberiad, Star Diaries, Perfect Vacuum and many more.
I think it was due to not enough sleep and far too much new Citrus Pepsi. And the fact that Tarkovski directed both Solaris and Stalker (Picnic on the Roadside).