Space Pirates-Jack Vance novel, book review

Space Pirates-Jack Vance novel

AKA: The Five Gold Bands and

The Rapparee (author’s preferred title)

This 138 page novel was written in 1949 and first published under the title "The Five Gold Bands" in November 1950 in Startling Stories magazine.  In 1953 it was reissued with the title "The Space Pirates" and in 2002 it was published under the title "The Rapparee."  Vance himself preferred The Rapparee title.  A rapparee was an Irish guerilla fighter from the 1690s, and our main character once refers to himself as being one.

Our main character is the Earther, Paddy Blackthorn, who has gone to the planet Akhabats where valuable space-drives are assembled.  Paddy is apprehended by Kudthu guards while he is trying to steal some of the rare and costly space-drives.  The penalty for this is mandatory death.  But when the "Koton Councillor" learns that Paddy is a master of numerous languages, he decides to delay the execution and use Paddy as a translator at an upcoming annual council meeting of the Five Sons of Langtry. 

As the novel progresses we learn the interesting background story.  Many years ago a man named Samuel Langtry from Earth invented the "space-drive" that allows ships to travel at great speeds through space.  Instead of turning the secret plans for creating space-drives over to the government or others on Earth, he distributed the information among his five sons.  These sons left Earth and settled on five different planets.  The descendent heirs of the original Five Sons of Langtry, now twenty generations later, continue to be the only ones who can produce space-drives.  Each of the descendent heirs rules his own planet and has part of the instructions for building this drive.  Together they have a monopoly on manufacturing space-drives which are essential to trade and commerce.  These drives are strictly rationed to Earth inhabitants who do not know how to build them.  People from Earth are also considered inferior by the residents of the five planets and are not even allowed to use the same hotels when visiting. 

The gravity, atmosphere, food and other factors on each planet have led to adaptations so that the humans on each of the five planets act, think and look dissimilar to Earthers and each other, often strikingly so even though they all are still human and could even interbreed.  Some planetary inhabitants are short, squat and very muscular from the greater gravity on their planet.  On another planet the humans look like 8 foot tall eagles.  These physical and mental changes appear to have happened over twenty generations since our main character meets with the Koton twentieth Son of Langtry. 

Each of the descendent Five Sons of Langtry wears a gold band with information or clues enclosed in a compartment in the band regarding where each of them has hidden their partial instructions on how to build a space-drive.  One of the bands also has a key in it.  After Paddy is able to take possession of all five of the gold bands, he tries to decipher the information or riddles included in each band.  To locate the actual space-drive plans he will have to visit each of the five planets on a treasure hunt like expedition.  Once he has all five sets of space-drive instructions, he hopes to be able to sell them for a vast sum of money to the highest bidder.

Paddy initially flees to the planet Spade-Ace in the Thieves Cluster where he has major surgery to alter his face, voice and fingerprints.  While there he joins up with a woman, Fay Bursill, who is an Earth Agent with her own space ship who has been trying to locate Paddy so she could eventually bring the space-drive instructions back to Earth.  The two of them then undertake adventures to visit each of the five planets to decipher the instructions, find the hidden space-drive plans and eventually return them to Earth.  Although Paddy makes disparaging remarks about Fay's body, appearance and personality, a romance gradually develops between them.  In the meantime an intensive and massive hunt is undertaken by others from the five planets and elsewhere to find Paddy and Fay, with immense rewards offered to the person who captures them alive.  In the face of such intensive search efforts, Paddy and Fay will have to find a way to slip into each planet without being discovered and arrested. 

Vance fans will notice some of his signature marks in this novel.  There is some world building, for example, although it is rather simple compared to what Vance would do in other novels.  We see some of Vance's ideas of how living on different planets changes the inhabitants.  When migrants from Earth settle on different planets the gravity, atmosphere, foods and other conditions on the planets modify the physiques, thoughts, behaviors, skills and limitations of the settlers.  Then we have a Vancian type main character who is not an idealistic or romanticized hero.  Paddy here is more of a lecherous, insulting, self-serving, brash, ruffian and thief.  There is also a typical Vancean quest or adventure, this time almost resembling a treasure hunt.

This very early writing is simply not one of Vance's better novels.  The dialog is merely routine, even sparse or choppy at times.  The narration sometimes seems patchy and disjointed.  Compared to other works by Vance, the writing here seems rather flat and grey scale, sometimes more like a draft than a final product.  So, although the plot is somewhat interesting with an intriguing background story, and we do see Vancian touches in the work, I wouldn't recommend this novel to most readers unless they are Jack Vance enthusiasts.  This is the third time I've read this novel and I rated it a 3 or "liked it" each time.

P.S.  In addition to "rapparee," a word I had to look up was "propinquinty."  Reading Vance can expand one's vocabulary.

Released numerous times on its own and currently available in a trade paperback titled The Rapparee by Spatterlight Press.

Included in the Jack Vance collection titled Grand Crusades: Early Jack Vance, vol. 5 (2012)