Tales of Pirx the Pilot
Stanisław Lem
 The stories are set somewhere in the XXI-XXII centuries, in a futuristic Occidental world (as opposed to a Communist Utopia where some of Lem's other novels take place) in which Mankind is starting to colonize the Solar System, has some settlements on the Moon and Mars, and is even beginning the exploration of the other solar systems. 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.