The Five Gold Bands

Infobox Book |
name = Five Gold Bands
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption = Cover of 1963 Ace paperback 1st edition
author = Jack Vance
illustrator =
cover_artist =
country = United States
language = English
series =
genre = Science fiction novel
publisher = Toby Press
release_date = 1950
media_type = Print (Paperback)
pages = 128 pp
isbn = NA
preceded_by =
followed_by =

"Five Gold Bands" is an early science fiction novel by Jack Vance, first published in the November 1950 issue of " Startling Stories " magazine in its entirety. In 1953, it was published as a separate book under the title "The Space Pirate". It only appeared under its original title in 1963, when it was paired with Vance's Hugo Award-winning novella "The Dragon Masters" in the form of a double novel issued by Ace Books.

Plot summary

Picaresque Irish adventurer Paddy Blackthorn is caught attempting to steal an interstellar space drive and is sentenced to death by the ruling council of mutant human species whose creator granted them its secrets. During his escape, he discovers that the secret on how to manufacture such engines has been divided into five parts and concealed in 5 gold rings at different locations for safekeeping. With the help of a beautiful human secret agent, Fay Bursill, Paddy searches the home planets of the each of the mutant species to find the hidden secret, with which humanity will be able to resume its rightful place as equals in space.

Major themes

Although one of Vance's earliest efforts, "Five Gold Rings" exhibits many of the stylistic elements that would come to characterize many of his later works: a picaresque protagonist who unintentionally achieves the greater good in a frantic and desperate attempt to save his own life, numerous highly exotic locales populated by equally exotic sentient species, and the theme of a treasure hunt. It also introduces another constant theme of Vance’s work – that the local environment of alien planets will change any human colonists within a few generations to the extent that these evolved humans will scarcely be recognizable as human.

References

*cite book | last=Underwood | first=Tim | coauthors =Chuck Miller | title=Jack Vance | location=New York | publisher=Taplinger Publishing Company | pages=227 | date=1980 | isbn=0-8008-4295-2

External links

* [http://www.jackvance.com/ Jack Vance home page and archive]
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