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Balzhingiĭn Otgonbaatar
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Gold and Iron Paperback – December 11, 2017

by Jack Vance (Author), Ted Gioia (Foreword)
4.0 4.0 out of 5 stars 88 ratings
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Relatives of mankind, the benevolent Lekthwan come to Earth, sharing knowledge and superior technology.

Headstrong Roy Barch feels pangs of inferiority—particularly in the intellectual company of golden-skinned Komeitk Lelianr.

The brutish Klau follow the Lekthwan to Earth. Taken slave, Roy and Lelianr are transported to the hellish, massively-industrialized planet Magarak. Lelianr accepts her fate, but Roy rebels—risking life and limb to strike the Klau and win back to Earth.

Published in 1952 as Planet of the Damned, again in 1958 as Slaves of the Klau, Gold and Iron is Jack Vance’s most under-appreciated novel, a gritty tale of spirit and determination prevailing against intimidating odds.

Gold and Iron is Volume 9 of the Spatterlight Press Signature Series.Released in the centenary of the author's birth, this handsome new collectionis based upon the prestigious Vance Integral Edition. Select volumes enjoyup-to-date maps, and many are graced with freshly-written forewords contributedby a distinguished group of authors. Each book bears a facsimile of theauthor's signature and a previously-unpublished photograph, chosen from family archives for the period the book was written. These uniquefeatures will be appreciated by all, from seasoned Vance collector to new reader sampling the spectrum of this author's influential work forthe first time. – John Vance II

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  1. Print length
    158 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publication date
    December 11, 2017
  4. Dimensions
    6 x 0.4 x 9 inches
  5. ISBN-10
    1619471302
  6. ISBN-13
    978-1619471306
  7. See all details
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Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Spatterlight Press; 1st edition (December 11, 2017)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 158 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1619471302
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1619471306
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 8.5 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.4 x 9 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.0 4.0 out of 5 stars 88 ratings

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Balzhingiĭn Otgonbaatar

Balzhingiĭn Otgonbaatar

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4 out of 5 stars
4 out of 5
88 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Scott Reeves
4.0 out of 5 stars Vintage Vance
Reviewed in the United States on July 11, 2013
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This is a fairly short book, but I like short books. No padding, perfect for a quick read when you don't have a lot of time. As far as Jack Vance goes, Gold and Iron (previous title: Slaves of the Klau) isn't one of his better books. But it's perfect for a die-hard Vance fan like me, who thought he'd read every sci-fi book by Vance, only to stumble across all these wonderful releases on Amazon. Just do your research before you buy a Vance book on Kindle that you think you haven't heard of before, because it might be one you've already read, but with a new title.

Gold and Iron lacks the highly stylized writing that usually makes Vance books so great, so the writing is a bit bland and unremarkable. But at least the usual outlandish characters, with their quirky and outrageous behaviors, are here.

http://www.amazon.com/Scott-Reeves/e/B002HHJUQ4
6 people found this helpful
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Jack Of Alltrades
5.0 out of 5 stars Vance does it again! Best protagonist ever! Ignore the bad cover art. This is a great story.
Reviewed in the United States on October 2, 2012
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Vance is a master as anyone who has read his novels knows. All his protagonists are men of honor, men with whom the reader can empathize, men whom we can hope to emulate. This protagonist, Roy Barch, has to be one of his best. Vain, yes, but able to recognize it in himself and repulsed by it. Barch is also strong willed and thoughtful, but no superman---he learns as he goes. If you enjoy Vance, if you enjoy damned good SF, then don't miss this.
6 people found this helpful
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Ed Garvey
3.0 out of 5 stars Lots of familiar Jack Vance themes and some good reading but a rather abrupt ending - possibly due ...
Reviewed in the United States on January 3, 2015
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Lots of familiar Jack Vance themes and some good reading but a rather abrupt ending - possibly due to original length restrictions.
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Evil Overlord
4.0 out of 5 stars Good, old fashioned adventure
Reviewed in the United States on December 1, 2012
CVIE vol III

Gold and Iron play no more than a metaphorical role in this early Vance story. The original title, Slaves of the Klau, while considerably less poetic, is more accurate. The story concerns an Earthman and a woman from another, more advanced race, who are taken captive by the Klau.

This is a very John Campbell-esque story, in that it's apparently early that only Earthmen, despite their low level of civilization, have the strength and dynamism to keep going in the face of adversity. There's little of the usual Vance wordplay and aloof would-be sophisticates come in only via the aliens. Instead, it's a straightforward adventure story. That said, it's still well-written, and worth reading.

Not a good introduction to Vance, but if you're looking for good old fashioned space opera, when men were men (and women were unfortunately mostly decorative), this fits the bill.
2 people found this helpful
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Steve Sherman
5.0 out of 5 stars Spatterlight's edition is the only complete version
Reviewed in the United States on April 27, 2018
Full disclosure: I was involved in the production of the Spatterlight Press edition, as I was years ago in the Vance Integral Edition. That said, I regard this as one of Vance's most underrated early works, a novel of character disguised as space adventure.

Originally published as Planet of the Damned in a 1952 issue of a fairly obscure SF magazine called Space Stories, it is best known in an abridged version, appearing as Slaves of the Klau in an Ace Double with Big Planet (which was even more brutally abridged). The abridgment excised all vestiges of the relationship between the golden-skinned Lekthwan woman, Komeitk Lelianr, and the iron-willed Earthman, Roy Barch, who are captured together by the brutal Klau. It is this relationship that raises Gold and Iron (Vance's preferred title, under which it was published in a limited edition by Underwood-Miller and by the VIE) above the usual run of space opera. Barch never quite overcomes his inferiority complex, even after proving his mettle against a totalitarian industrialized race; Lelianr, product of an advanced but effete culture, learns rather more from the experience. The tension between them, both in their initial interactions on Earth and as fugitives from the Klau, is the stuff of great storytelliing.

The Spatterlight Press edition contains the full text as published in Space Stories and by Underwood-Miller, and is thus the only mass market edition that presents this novel as Jack Vance originally conceived it.
8 people found this helpful
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Joshua C Robinson
3.0 out of 5 stars Three Stars
Reviewed in the United States on August 15, 2015
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I love Jack Vance but this book had one of the most ridiculous endings I've ever read.
One person found this helpful
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Leo W. Early, Jr.
5.0 out of 5 stars An Underappreciated Classic
Reviewed in the United States on August 23, 2003
This story was once published under the title "Slaves of the Klau" in an Ace Double Novel paperback along with "Big Planet". In that form, it was reviewed by the well-respected reviewer of Analog Science Fiction magazine, P. Schuyler Miller, who said "Buy it for Big Planet, and let the Klau grind their mills in peace".
In retrospect, I think Miller was mistaken. Although it's little-noticed, and not classic Vance, I nevertheless believe it's a gem of its kind.
The story concerns a man who's abducted from Earth, along with an extraterrestrial visitor, during a raid by the slave-taking Klau. The two are taken, along with the other slaves, to one of the Klau planets, an eerie machine-world where the only open space is in the mountains and the sea, where the upper atmosphere is shrouded with industrial fumes, where the single world-city is filled with the cacophony of heavy machines manufacturing other machines, where the night is brightly lit with furnace flares and electric lights. Here they escape, jumping out the cargo hatch when their spaceship is coming in for a landing, using the extraterrestrial's levitation shoes to avoid being killed by the fall. They land in an isolated mountain district some distance from a mine, where they join a group of escaped slaves, who are more or less tolerated by the Klau, who enjoy hunting them for recreation.
Here the hero attempts to engineer the construction of a spaceship to escape the machine-world in, using the talents of the escaped slaves to build the vessel and stealing the needed parts and supplies from the Klau. The Klau of course object to this, attempting to hunt down and kill the thieves. This forces the hero to begin a guerrilla war against the Klau in order to prevent his refuge from being overrun.
Some people have found the plot hard to believe, but the incidents described seem reasonable, taken one at a time. People do leave things where they can be stolen, especially when no thefts have occurred within living memory, and buildings do get broken into. The Klau react exactly as you would expect them to, and it's only the foresight of the hero which prevents disaster. Some people have found the climactic scene near the end of the book, where the hero sends a flying barge loaded with explosives into the Central Control Complex of the machine world, hard to believe, saying that the Klau would have better security than that. But would they? For thousands of years their slaves have defied them only with riots, runaways, and random murderers quickly hunted down and punished. Would they be ready for the sort of actions the hero carries out? Having seen the exploits of real terrorists, I have to believe that it's not easy to stop them.
There's none of Vance's trademark irony and wit here. This is a grim story about a desperate situation. The language is spare rather than elegant. The strange environment is meticulously detailed and the characters are well-drawn, if not complicated. Although the plot seems far-fetched to some, it seems believable to me. Vance shows in great detail just how the characters prepare for later actions, and how it is that they can accomplished what they do.
This is not one of Vance's classics; if you can only buy one thing from Vance I would recommend "The Dying Earth", the "Lyonesse" trilogy, the "Tschai" series, or the "Demon Princes" series. If you already have these, however, "Gold and Iron" is well worth having. Recommended.
20 people found this helpful
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John K
2.0 out of 5 stars Two Stars
Reviewed in the United States on February 9, 2017
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Mediocre
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Top reviews from other countries

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george
4.0 out of 5 stars A good story
Reviewed in Canada on May 28, 2022
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An early work and not one of his best. Still it is Jack Vance and well worth the read.
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Livio Baldi
4.0 out of 5 stars Recensione ingannevole
Reviewed in Italy on September 27, 2017
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Non uno dei migliori romanzi di Vance. La presentazione sul sito Amazon riferimento al Big Planet, che non c'entra per nulla con questo romanzo.
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Brian Waugh
4.0 out of 5 stars Four Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 6, 2016
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Excellent read.
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reale vincenzo
5.0 out of 5 stars Vance uber Alles
Reviewed in Italy on September 2, 2017
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Un bel romanzo con titolo italiano Schiavi del Klau la cui ambientazione ha nulla anche vedere con Big Planet di cui parla la presentazione ma va bene così perché Vance è piacere puro per il lettore
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MR D A WITCHLOW
5.0 out of 5 stars It's Jack Vance; how can it be less than 6 stars?
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 22, 2013
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Not sure where this book came from - I thought I knew all of his SF(ish) books but I'd never heard of this one. Slightly familiar feel to the story though, so I wonder if it's a re-write/pre-write (is there such a word?). Definitely worth reading though!
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