Tales of Pirx the Pilot

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").

A fragment of "The Hunt for Setaur" was added to the required curriculum for Polish junior-high school students in the 1990s.

[2] [better source needed] About the country of origin of Pirx, we know only that money there are called "crowns" (koruny).

Pirx is a cadet, 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, Moon, and Mars.

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.