In the highly unlikely event that a science-fiction writer is deemed worthy of a Nobel Prize in the near future, the most likely candidate would be (...) Stanislaw Lem.

  By any standard Mr. Lem is a major writer; he is also a writer with many voices. A restless intellect who puts different pieces of himself into different books, he has created no single work that can be said to encapsulate his vision. Tales of Pirx the Pilot (first collected in Polish in 1968) shows Mr. Lem at his most accessible. With a minimum of philosophical speculation, social satire and absurdist humor, he offers a series of what appear to be technological detective stories, set in a common future that is at least as plausible as the world depicted nightly on the 7 o'clock news.

Gerald Jonas, The New York Times Book Review

 

Harcourt Brace, New York 1990

  With the exception of two or three short stories I am not too happy about this book. The first reason for its weakness is the similarity to a typical Bildungsroman. However a Bildungsroman has to be a novel with an "epic breath" and a broad social and historical background, while in the tales of the brave Pirx the Pilot the general perspective is rather narrow - the hero is isolated, has no friends or relatives. My initial intention was to write or two short stories only. Other stories appeared quite unexpectedly and there was no way to retroactively equip Pirx with a decent family. So the elements that are quite natural in a short story in series show some artificiality. But today I still like Ananke and Terminus.

  MODEL:  AST- PM -15/0044.

TYPE:  Universal maintenance.

NAME:  Terminus.

NATURE OF DAMAGE:  Functional disintegration.

RECOMMENDATIONS: . . .

 

  He hesitated, holding the pen up close to the paper, then pulling it away.  He began thinking about the innocence of machines, about how man had endowed them with intelligence and, in doing so, had made them an accomplice if his mad adventures.  About how the myth of the golem - the machine that rebelled against its creator - was a lie, a fiction invented by the guilty for the sake of self-exoneration.  

RECOMMENDATIONS:  To be scrapped.

  And with a perfectly rigid face, he signed it:

Pirx, first navigator.

 

Translated by Louis Irbarne, Harcourt Brace 1982

 

Bibliography

• Wydawnictwo Literackie, Kraków 1968
• Czytelnik, Warszawa 1973
• Wydawnictwo Literackie, Kraków 1976
• Iskry, Warszawa 1980
• Wydawnictwo Literackie Kraków-Wrocław 1986
• Nowe Wydawnictwo Polskie, Warszawa 1990
•  KAW, Białystok 1993
• Interart, Warszawa 1995
• Siedmioróg, Wrocław 1997
• Wydawnictwo Literackie, Kraków 1999

• Tales of Pirx, The Pilot - Harcourt Brace, 1979
• Tales of Pirx, The Pilot - Secker & Warburg, 1980
• Tales of Pirx, The Pilot - Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1982 (together with Return from The Stars & Invincible)
• Tales of Pirx, The Pilot - Mandarin, London, 1990
• Tales of Pirx, The Pilot - Harcourt Brace, 1990
• More Tales of Pirx, The Pilot - Harcourt Brace, 1982
• More Tales of Pirx, The Pilot - Secker & Wartburg, 1983
• More Tales of Pirx, The Pilot - Harcourt Brace, 1983
• More Tales of Pirx, The Pilot - Mandarin, London 1990
• More Tales of Pirx, The Pilot - Harvest Books, San Diego 1990