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''Tales of Pirx the Pilot'' () is a science fiction stories collection by Polish author
Stanisław Lem Stanisław Herman Lem (; 12 September 1921 – 27 March 2006) was a Polish writer. He was the author of many novels, short stories, and essays on various subjects, including philosophy, futurology, and literary criticism. Many of his science fi ...
, about a spaceship
pilot An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its Aircraft flight control system, directional flight controls. Some other aircrew, aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are al ...
named Pirx. Individual stories were published during 1959-1965 in various collections. The first collection of stories specifically about Pirx was published in 1965 in the Soviet Union in Russian under the title ''Охота на Сэтавра'' ("The Hunt for Setaur"). It was translated in Latvian as ''Petaura medības'' in 1966. In 2009 a Lithuanian publisher ''Eridanas'' published the story as ''Setauro Medžioklė.'' In Poland a more complete collection (as ''Opowieści o pilocie Pirxie'') was published in 1968, and translated to English in two parts (''Tales of Pirx the Pilot'' and ''More Tales of Pirx the Pilot'') in 1979 and 1982. Pirx stories include both philosophical and comic elements. A fragment of "The Hunt for Setaur" was added to the required curriculum for Polish junior-high school students in the 1990s.


Pirx universe

About the country of origin of Pirx, we know only that money there are called "crowns" (''koruny''). The time frame of the events may sometimes look like near future: while some stories mention private businesses, Orlinski describes the landscapes in stories as "inspired by those of
Polish People's Republic The Polish People's Republic (1952–1989), formerly the Republic of Poland (1947–1952), and also often simply known as Poland, was a country in Central Europe that existed as the predecessor of the modern-day democratic Republic of Poland. ...
". Wojciech Orliński, ''Co to są sepulki? Wszystko o Lemie'' 'What are Sepulki? Everything about Lem'' 2007, , pp. 168-171. At the same time, "The romantic times of astronautics have long gone" and mankind is busy colonizing the
Solar System The Solar SystemCapitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Sola ...
, has some settlements on the
Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It Orbit of the Moon, orbits around Earth at Lunar distance, an average distance of (; about 30 times Earth diameter, Earth's diameter). The Moon rotation, rotates, with a rotation period (lunar ...
and
Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. It is also known as the "Red Planet", because of its orange-red appearance. Mars is a desert-like rocky planet with a tenuous carbon dioxide () atmosphere. At the average surface level the atmosph ...
, and is even beginning the exploration of the other star systems. Pirx is a
cadet A cadet is a student or trainee within various organisations, primarily in military contexts where individuals undergo training to become commissioned officers. However, several civilian organisations, including civil aviation groups, maritime ...
, a pilot, and finally a captain of a merchant spaceship, and the stories relate his life and various things that happen to him during his travels between the
Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to Planetary habitability, harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all ...
,
Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It Orbit of the Moon, orbits around Earth at Lunar distance, an average distance of (; about 30 times Earth diameter, Earth's diameter). The Moon rotation, rotates, with a rotation period (lunar ...
, and
Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. It is also known as the "Red Planet", because of its orange-red appearance. Mars is a desert-like rocky planet with a tenuous carbon dioxide () atmosphere. At the average surface level the atmosph ...
.


Pirx

In a way, Pirx is as an ordinary "working man" who unlike traditional heroic space pilots has little if anything heroic about him. He sometimes finds himself in extreme situations, which he overcomes mostly through ordinary common sense and average luck. In particular, in the story ''The Inquest'', Lem puts forth the idea that what is perceived a human weakness is in fact an advantage over a perfect machine. In this tale Pirx defeats the robot, because a human can hesitate, make wrong decisions, have doubts, but a robot cannot.


Stories

''Tales of Pirx the Pilot'' was translated by Louis Iribarne. ''More Tales of Pirx the Pilot'' was also translated by Iribarne, with the assistance of Magdalena Majcherczyk. An exception is "The Hunt", translated by
Michael Kandel Michael Kandel (born 24 December 1941, in Baltimore, Maryland) is an American translator and author of science fiction. Biography Kandel received a doctorate in Slavistics from Indiana University. His most recent position was editor at the ...
. ''Tales of Pirx the Pilot'' * "The Test" * "The Conditioned Reflex" * "On Patrol" * "The Albatross" *:Pirx is second navigator of a luxury starship ''Titan'', which receives a S.O.S. signal from starship ''Albatross'' with damaged reactor. Despite all efforts, people from Albatross could not be rescued. * " Terminus" ''More Tales of Pirx the Pilot'' * "The Hunt" *:Pirx, now a starship commander, takes part in a hunt for a mining robot, which got damaged and started attacking people with laser. Suddenly he comes face to face with the robot, but did not fire at it, knowing that the robot is much faster. At that moment a rock next to Pirx is hit by laser from the vehicle of another hunter team. The robot hits the vehicle thus saving Pirx, and Pirx hits the robot. Later it turns out that another team didn't see robot and were aiming at Pirx, mistaking him for the robot. Pirx concludes that the robot deliberately saved him, because, with its perfect logic the robot saw that it was not the target. Therefore Pirx begins to feel remorse... * "Pirx's Tale" *:Pirx tells a story of what had happened during his stunt as a commander on an old malfunctioning starship with a ragtag crew. They meet a huge drifting object amid a meteor swarm that looks like an alien artifact, but the opportunity of the first contact was lost due to the utter and complete mishap: he even cannot transmit the recorded coordinates to the base because it turned out that the (tape) recorder was out of tape. And he was hesitating whether to report orally by radio, because he was in violation of numerous instructions... * "The Accident" *: Pirx solves the mystery of a disappeared robot. Pirx figured out that the robot crashed while climbing a mountain without any apparent reason. Pirx concluded that it undertook the endeavor of its own free will, acting as an alpinist looking for a difficult climb. Pirx's colleagues dismiss this hypothesis. * "The Inquest" *:For plot summary, see '' Inquest of Pilot Pirx'', a 1978 film * "Ananke" *:Pirx investigated a crash of a state-of the-art spaceship and find out that its artificial intelligence was trained by a former starship commander who was discharged from commanding due to his OCPD, but who was found to be suitable as a trainer due to his meticulosity associated with the disorder. (In Polish, OCPD is called "
ananke In ancient Greek religion, Ananke (; ), from the common noun ("force, constraint, necessity"), is the Orphic personification of inevitability, compulsion, and necessity. She is customarily depicted as holding a spindle. One of the Greek pr ...
syndrome", hence the title of the story.) Pirx concludes that starship's computer inherited the OCPD trait from the trainer and started doing a large number of marginally relevant actions, which slowed down its processing speed.


Adaptations

A television mini-series, ''Pirx kalandjai'' ('' The Adventures of Pirx''), was released in Hungary in 1973. A Polish-Soviet feature-length film, '' Inquest of Pilot Pirx'', was released in 1979.


Reception

Dave Langford reviewed ''More Tales of Pirx the Pilot'' for ''
White Dwarf A white dwarf is a Compact star, stellar core remnant composed mostly of electron-degenerate matter. A white dwarf is very density, dense: in an Earth sized volume, it packs a mass that is comparable to the Sun. No nuclear fusion takes place i ...
'' #42, and stated that "The perfect thinking machine is never perfect because it's been built by fallible us. 'A robot that can match man mentally and not be capable of lying or cheating is a fantasy.' So much for Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics!"


Reviews

*Review by Bob Mecoy (1980) in ''
Future Life ''Future Life'', known as ''Future'' in its first year, was a List of science magazines, science and science fiction magazine published from 1978 to 1981 by O'Quinn Studios. In the first year of its existence, the magazine was called "Future", the ...
'', May 1980 *Review by Ian Watson (1981) in '' Foundation'', #21 February 1981 *Review by George Zebrowski (1981) in ''
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction ''The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction'' (usually referred to as ''F&SF'') is a U.S. fantasy fiction magazine, fantasy and science-fiction magazine, first published in 1949 by Mystery House, a subsidiary of Lawrence E. Spivak, Lawrence Spiv ...
'', April 1981 *Review by Bruce Gillespie (1981) in ''SF Commentary'', #62/63/64/65/66 *Review by David Langford s by Dave Langford(1981) in ''Paperback Inferno'', Volume 5, Number 2 *Review by Bob Mecoy (1982) in '' Heavy Metal'', August 1982 *Review by Norman Beswick (1991) in ''Paperback Inferno'', #88


See also

* ''The Hunt'' (1950s Stanisław Lem short story), a precursor of ''The Hunt'' of Pirx's tales.


References


External links


Tales of Pirx the Pilot
at the official Lem website (English version) * - Polish-USSR movie adaptation.

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A review
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'' {{Authority control 1979 short story collections Hard science fiction Short story collections by Stanisław Lem Polish short story collections Pirx