Karel Capek

Karel Capek was one of the most influential Czech writers of the last century, writing with a keen intelligence, humour and wrote within the genre of science fiction before it was even recognised as a separate genre.

He is largely considered to be one of the founders of classical soft science fiction that focused on social and human evolution, along with Aldous Huxley, George Orwell and others.

Capek introduced and popularised the term "robot" which was originally derived from the Czech word "robota" meaning serf labour and drudery (or hard work). This modern term first appeared in the play RUR (Rossum's Universal Robots back in 1921) which is now available as part of Gollancz SF Masterworks collection, published along with the dystopian satire War with the Newts.