The Five Gold Bands is a science fiction novel by American writer Jack Vance, first published in the November 1950 issue of Startling Stories magazine.

It was published in 1953 as a separate book under the title The Space Pirate, and in 1963 it was paired with Vance's Hugo Award-winning novella The Dragon Masters in the form of an Ace Double.

In escaping from his sentence, Paddy accidentally kills the Sons of Langtry and takes from each a bracelet containing a clue to the location of one-fifth of the secret.

With the help of a beautiful human secret agent, Fay Bursill, Paddy follows the clues on each of the five dominant worlds, in the hope that Earthfolk will be able to resume their rightful place in space.

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.