Making Money: A Discworld Novel

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Who would not to wish to be the man in charge of Ankh-Morpork's Royal Mint and the bank next door? It's a job for life. But, as former con-man Moist von Lipwig is learning, the life is not necessarily for long. The Chief Cashier is almost certainly a vampire. And there's something nameless in the cellar.

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Amazon Customer Reviews:

Jonathan Oakey: A Tour de Farce
I see many lukewarm reviews for this book and I'm very surprised. For me, this was an excellent book in the best Discworld traditions - plenty of satire and subtle digs in many directions, and the plot a little more focused than they often are. A very entertaining book with several laugh-out-loud moments for me.

Well done again, Terry! :)
C. Pickering: Another Masterpiece
I don't know what it is about Terry Pratchett but he ticks all the boxes for me. Perhaps it is the way that he analyses the human condition through the happenings in an alternative universe. Anyway, this is another story that tickles the imagination and says more about humanity than many a 'literary' novel.
Wiggles: Cold cash
Moist von Lipwig, tired after making the Post Office such as success in "Going Postal", is itching for a new challenge - Vetinari sees this and turns Lipwig onto the banks and currency. Thusly Moist enters into a similar story to his last one where instead of the post, he is tasked with rejuvenating the money. The usual cast of new characters who seem familiarly like some previous new characters are present as are stock favourites, Vetinari, Vimes, Carrot, and a cameo by Death.

As others have pointed out the similarities to "Going Postal" are glaring and this is the problem with "Making Money" in that it has the feeling that we've been here before, not 2 years ago in fact! Sadly, it's very predictable fare. As Nobbs points out to Colon in the first third of the book: "Odds, sarge?" "You're running a book, Nobby. You always run a book" "Can't get any takers, sarge. Foregone conclusion. Everyone thinks he'll win" (p.132). And he does. A foregone conclusion. Yawn.

It wouldn't be so bad if Pratchett had made some interesting villains or obstacles but what we get is a rich guy who wants to be Vetinari, and something ominous but vague about golems which is quickly resolved in a paragraph at the end. Hardly edge of the seat stuff. Even the "secret" of Mr Bent, one of the new characters, is poor stuff. It's built up throughout the book and then revealed in a very weak punchline at the end. Vetinari disappointingly is present through much of the book when before he would have a couple of pages at the beginning and a couple at the end. His menace and mystique goes from interesting and dark to being that of a stern headmaster who is nonetheless approachable.

Also, there isn't much satire here. What exactly is he lampooning? Pratchett's always very sharp on his targets in Discworld but there doesn't seem to be a target here except that he wanted to introduce paper money to the citizens of Ankh Morpork which, really, he could have mentioned in a throwaway line in a better Discworld book ("What's this paper money for? Where's the gold?" "Y'know that Lipwig fellow? Vetinari put him in charge of the banks, so that's what we've got now" "Oh").

Who'd have thought it with Pratchett's ingenuinty - a by-the-numbers Discworld book? And it's hinted at the end that Moist will reappear to re-do the Ankh Morpork tax system! Dear me, I sincerely hope that book never materialises. The character of Moist was good for one book, two is stretching it, three is too much.

I can't bash this too much being a lifelong Discworld fan. It's well written and has enough going on to hold the interest even if you can see what's going to happen a mile off. Still, a visit to Ankh Morpork is always welcome and it's fun to see the familiar characters once again. Ideally a new Death book would be best but hey ho I guess Terry's lost interest in him and is content to churn out Young Adult Discworld like the atrocious Tiffany Aching/Nac Mac Feegle books. I just hope Terry goes with two of his other ideas "Snuff" featuring Vimes, and/or "Scouting for Trolls" a riff on "Scouting for Boys" instead of rounding off the trilogy of Moist (Moist! That name!) books.
LMDB: Making Money
"Money makes the world go round," the proverb says. But what if the world in question is not a round blue and green globe, but a flat disc resting on the back of four elephants, standing on a giant turtle swimming through space? On this magical world, it is just the same, as the 36th novel of the Discworld series proves. The famous British fantasy author Terry Pratchett even lets one of his characters observe this critically: "The world is full of things worth more than gold. [...] Good heavens, potatoes are worth more than gold!"

In his long running satirical Discworld series, Pratchett has dealt with many topics and humorously portrayed a few organizations; Journalism, the army, the inquisition, the police and religious groups being only a few of them. No other author, producing about two books a year, most of them belonging to a series that has gone on for that long, has yet proven to be able to continue a sequence of related novels this good, and find new, exhilarating topics for every book. Terry Pratchett, however, seems to have an inexhaustible quantity of topics and ideas at his disposal. This is why he remains the one fantasy author that even those, who usually do not read fantasy books, enjoy. In addition, he is not simply read for the story but for the way in which it is written, the humorous use of the English language and his sharp observations on life. Witches, wizards, dwarfs and trolls seem to only appear incidentally.

In Making Money, his 36th novel of the Discworld series, Terry Pratchett approaches the world of banking and economics. It relates the story of a difficult change, from familiar, heavy, shiny gold coins to strange, light, simple sheets of paper money.
The change is initiated by Moist von Lipwig, the protagonist already known from Going Postal. Similar to this previous novel, it is not actually out of his own free will that he takes up the job, but due to Lord Vetinari's `convincing nature'. The tyrannical patrician of the city Ankh-Morpork just knows how to make him accept `suggestions'.
First Moist von Lipwig refuses the offered post of the director of the bank, only to encounter a few days later, that the old lady, who has been leading the bank previously, died, leaving the majority of shares to her beloved dog Mr. Fusspot and Lipwig in care of the said dog. Mr. Fusspot is now by law the bank's official chairdog, and Moist gets to run the bank anyways. He grabs the new challenge, as he is bored with his career as the postmaster anyhow, and does what he is known to do: talk a lot and change everything with spontaneous decisions and revolutionary ideas, always following his principle: "Run before you walk! Fly before you crawl! Keep moving forward!"
In the words of his girlfriend, Miss Adora Belle Dearheart, the beginning of the story is summed up like this: "a mad old lady - all right, a very astute mad old lady - died and gave you her dog, which sort of wears this bank on its collar, and you've told everyone that gold is worth less than potatoes". And so Lipwig's new venture starts.
Since the royal mint and the bank have for a long time belonged to an extravagant and careless family, he finds no easy situation to start from. The main problem is that the bank has lost the client's trust. People prefer to keep their gold in a stocking under the mattress, because that way they know that someone who wants to steal it, at least has to make some effort. But he would not be the trickster and fraud he is, if Moist von Lipwig could not talk people into trusting him. Still he encounters various difficulties, as he has to convince the citizens of Ankh-Morpork that their gold coins would be better replaced by paper money, while avoiding not only the scheming Lord Vetinari but also the money hungry Lavish family, a hilarious parody of the Medici, who row amongst themselves and try to get rid of him and Mr. Fusspot to seize the bank.

Moist von Lipwig, the smart, persuasive and charming protagonist leads the main plot of the story, but there are additional, side-splitting subplots centring on further characters that liven up the story. Established characters, like Lord Vetinari or the members of the City Watch for example, divert the reader with their characteristic and sometimes comically stereotypical habits and snappy dialogues. Also Miss Adora Belle Dearheart, Lipwig's fiancé, is a stunningly cynical character, who offers many occasions for a smirk. In addition, completely unknown characters bring in puzzling side stories that support the main plot, that is in its essence disappointingly similar to Going Postal: Bank manager Mr. Bent, who is obsessed with numbers and accepting no imprecision or mistakes, hides a mad secret; the members of the Lavish family, above all the siblings Cosmo and Pucci Lavish, entertain with their virulent bickering and mischievous intrigues; and Hubert, the somewhat crazy nephew of the former bank director, installed a machine in the basement of the bank that represents the cash flow in the city - an act that is not without consequence.

Although Making Money can be read separately without difficulties in following the plot or missing out on jokes, it does even work better if the reader already knows the previous novel Going Postal. As mentioned before, it also repeats the general theme of the other book, even though set in a different surrounding, which is quite a letdown. Despite these minor concerns, Pratchett again convinces with his preeminent use of the English language, integrating nifty wordplays and witty puns and also with captivating and profound characters. Lipwig's eloquence and Lord Vetinari's dry humour and lethal way with words are yet another ingenious method of showing his skill.

For anyone who enjoys Pratchett, it is out of question that he will want to read this book as well. For those who never even read a Discworld novel it is without doubt a recommendable one to start with.

looby (Louise G): as entertaining and witty as ever
I really enjoyed this book and finished it within a couple of days because I couldn't put it down. The plot is ingenious if farcical, and has uncomfrtable resonances with what's been happening in the real world economy. There were a couple of duff jokes but this was in general the sort of romp we've come to love from TP.