The Five Gold Bands
 Cover of first standalone edition (1953, Toby Press) | |
| Author | Jack Vance |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Science fiction |
Publication date | 1950 |
| Media type | Print (Paperback) |
| Pages | 128 |
The Five Gold Bands is a
Plot summary
Twenty generations ago, an Earthman named Langtry stumbled on a way to travel efficiently among the stars. He divided the secret among his five sons, each of whom settled on a different planet. The heirs of the five, known as the Sons of Langtry, now dominate the human universe. Generations of life on strange worlds have made them visibly distinct from each other and from Earthers, who are held in contempt on each of the Sons' five homeworlds.
Major themes
Although one of Vance's earliest efforts, The Five Gold Bands exhibits many of the stylistic elements that would come to characterize many of his later works: a colorful protagonist who unintentionally achieves the greater good in a frantic and desperate attempt to save his own life (and fortune), numerous exotic locales populated by equally exotic sentient species, and the theme of a treasure hunt. It also introduces another frequent theme of Vance’s work – that the environment of an alien planet will change any human colonists within a few generations to the extent that they will scarcely be recognizable as human.
References
- Underwood, Tim; Chuck Miller (1980). Jack Vance. New York: Taplinger Publishing Company. pp. 227. ISBN 0-8008-4295-2.