This book was available a while ago on PBS but I've forgotten a few minor identifiers, you know, author, title, little things like that. It is an SF novel, probably from the 70s, about a group of humans taken prisoner by an alien race and marooned on a planet (moon?) without weapons or metals of any kind, and their struggle to find a way to escape. While I know the majority of the plot points, please don't spill them here, if you know what the book is. THANKS

I think you need to add a few of the plot points. The description you have could be quite a few books.

*agrees with Sue*  A few more details, since you seem to be saying you actually do know more about it :-)

This is sort of a hi-jack -well ok it is a real hi-jack But  I was looking at the description and he said the book was written in the 70's yet the aliens possibly dumped them on the moon.  I haven't looked at the copyright dates on my books but I do seem to have noticed a drifting from the moon (once we went there) to mars to beyond.  I'm not saying that there aren't books that feature aliens and the moon in the 70's or mars and aliens in the 90's  but if it was the moon and slightly obscure (since we all didn't jump in with the title) aren't the odds higher that it was a  50's 60's book?  Unless there was a flag on the moon or something and they used the flagpole to build an ion transformer etc...  HA pulled it back to the topic

Greg just mentioned that they might have been dropped on a moon -- which does not necessarily mean The Moon a.k.a. Earth's Moon.  Other planets have moons as well.

Indeed, not OUR moon, A moon. As for more plot points, i don't really have any: humans were marooned after capture --they are not actively guarded by their captors nor held within any sort of building -- their prison consists of the planet/moon and its native species and lack of usable metallic compounds -- meaning they could not manufacture weapons or escape craft of any mechanical sort. So the puzzle is, how can they possibly escape? That's all I have, I have not read this book, I wanted to but lost track of it.  Stumped.

There's a Usenet group - I guess they are Google groups these days - anyway Google rec.arts.sf.written. You can post your query there, they can usually answer even the most obscure book questions. 

Hey, Greg, it is called the reminder list for a reason.  And they let you post lots of books on it........