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| Making Money (Discworld) | 
 enlarge | Author: Terry Pratchett
Publisher: Corgi Books
Category: Book
List Price: £7.99
Buy New: £2.89
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Avg. Customer Rating:  89 reviews
Sales Rank: 247
Media: Mass Market Paperback
Pages: 480
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 6.8 x 4.2 x 1.3
ISBN: 0552154903
EAN: 9780552154901
Publication Date: June 16, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: IN STOCK - BRAND NEW - IMMEDIATE DISPATCH
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| Customer Reviews: Read 84 more reviews...
 Moist Van Lipwig Rides Again September 3, 2008
Terry Pratchett back to top form with the return of Moist Van Lipwig - scally, scoundrel and risk taker extraordinaire.
You need to have read Going Postal before this book to get the full flavour and understanding of the key characters.
Brilliant, with a court room scene near the end to die for.
Finally! August 29, 2008
After a few below-Pratchett standard books, which may have been fun but didn't have the depth - we have finally seen TP return to the best of his form. Admittedly, there has been a change of style since the first Discworld books but now that the fusion has matured the story was engaging, the characters interesting and there was a storyline worth exploring!
In Making Money we meet adventure-seeking Moist being given the 'choice' to run the Royal Bank of Ankh Morpork. And what can a guy like that like that enjoy more than given an impossible task of doing something he knows nothing about, not even the dangers. Having a bunch of relatives grown up on and attached to money who want nothing more than your blood for breakfast is just a tip of the iceberg. Of course, Vetinari 'steering' things makes thing just a lot more interesting.
So I say read and rejoice!
 Still Pratchett, but not a classic. August 7, 2008
Let's be honest, any Pratchett fan will have to admit that Moist von Lipwig looked to be the Discworlds next big character. Going Postal was one of TP's best "newer" books and that was almost exclusively down to the lovable rogue that is (or was) Moist. Where Vimes had began to grow stale, up popped Moist; another anti-hero persona, but from a completely different angle.
Making Money was set to capitalise on the new character, but in this it failed. Just like Vimes before him, Moist has become dull, with his 'key to the city' (as Postmaster) and lack of worthwhile opposition the sense of suspense that kept him on his toes in the first book has pretty much vanished.
The books problems don't end with Moist. Whilst reading through you get the distinct impression that you have been cheated out of a fresh storyline. Making Money, whilst maybe not a carbon copy, runs much too similarly to Going Postal. Having read Going Postal you can pretty much tell where Making Money is going from the first chapter.
On the plus side, the story runs reasonably well and contains much of Pratchett's quirky comedy (mirroring our own 'Roundworld' in a way to exaggerate our own absurdities), but it doesn't feel like a classic Discworld. The plot is just too samey and the characters a little too set in their ways to offer much intrigue.
The series is still going strong July 25, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I think in recent years there's been a tendency to take Terry Pratchett for granted. He has consistently churned out, on average, two high-quality novels a year for the better part of a quarter of a century. His Discworld is one of the most fleshed-out secondary worlds in existence. Ankh-Morpork is routinely voted 'greatest fantasy city' ever. Out of 36 Discworld and a dozen non-Discworld novels, there are very few which can be said to be sub-par. There seemed to be this assumption that this was going to carry on for some considerable time to come. With the announcement of his illness last year that seems to have changed, and each new Pratchett novel is likely to garner more coverage and more interest than ever before.
Making Money is the 36th Discworld novel and its paperback release comes in the year that the flat world carried through space on the back of a giant turtle celebrates its 25th anniversary; The Colour of Magic, the first book in the series, was published in 1983. The book is also the sequel to an earlier Discworld novel, Going Postal. In that book, conman Moist von Lipwig was rescued from the gallows by the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork, Lord Vetinari, and set to work restoring the Post Office to its former glory. He succeeded handsomely.
Making Money opens a year later. The Post Office is a roaring success, but Moist is feeling a little bored, and has taken to breaking into his own bedroom to keep his skills fresh. The Patrician seems to have concluded that Moist would make an excellent troubleshooter to sort out Ankh-Morpork's other failing public services and tasks him with getting the Ankh-Morpork Bank back on its feet after the former chairwoman passed away, leaving her dog, Mr. Fusspot, to inherit the role of chairman. Moist is initially reluctant, but soon relishes the new challenge. Unfortunately, a family who own a share in the bank, the Lavishes, are not so keen on Moist's appointment and are soon digging into his dirty past to find something to use against him. Thrown into the mix are lots of golems (including a rather gender-confused one), an undead necromancer with an eye for the ladies, a very dedicated bank clerk and a lot of clockwork items of an intimate nature.
As usual, the book is an effortless read. Pratchett's prose sparkles and flows as easily as ever, although careful reading is required to catch every observation and piece of satire as it flies past. Pratchett's typical approach of standing back, putting a mirror in front of something we take for granted (banking, in this case) and saying, "Look, this is a really daft system on quite a few levels," is again quite successful here. As with the other later Discworld novels, the broad out-and-out humour takes a back seat to more wry observations, although a comical interlude involving a dog becoming attached to a new 'rubber chew toy' that in this case has fallen out of a cupboard of erotica, and then playing with it in polite company, shows that Pratchett still has time for a good old-fashioned piece of outrageous farce. That said, as with a number of other Pratchett novels the ending is somewhat contrived and the characters get out of the various fixes they're in with some fast-talk, handwaving and a nod from the Patrician, which is a resolution that has perhaps been used a few too many times in this series.
Whilst it's not up there with the series at its best, and the tendency for characters who are intelligent and forthright in their own books to come across a bit as bumbling fools when appearing in cameos outside them (in this case various members of the City Watch) is a bit wearying, Making Money is a solid addition to the series and adds a lot to the evolution of Discworld and Ankh-Morpork (which is now starting to get its own underground rail network, the Undertaking). Somewhat unusually for the series, the ending also sets up a third Moist von Lipwig adventure, Raising Taxes, which is likely to be another two or three Discworld books down the road.
An enjoyable series of sub-plots July 10, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Firstly, I enjoyed this book. Its the second Moist story- I found him to be a likeable character- a rouge, but paradoxically an honest rogue. Pratchett writes with a great deal of skill to develop this character- and it works- you WANT him to win, you like him... you would trust your money with him. Which is, of course, exactly what this story is about. Its about a bank being run by a con man, the key issue is trust. What is money WORTH? How do you trust paper money over gold? Well, Moist has his way...
What I found different about this book was the large number of sub plots- really just sub-stories that had a rather vauge (and ultimatly irrelevant) conenction to the main plot. They were, never the less, interesting strands, all of which came to funny and amusing endings. Cosmo Lavish has an interesting scheme, for example, which just seemed to fizzle. There is the dog, Mr Fusspot, who is probably involved in what is Pratchetts most risque little joke ever (what HAS he got in his mouth)- and its very funny. The ending to Mr Fusspot's story is hearwarming, and totally unexpected. The reader is left to speculate exactly what is going on there- almost certainly two things, in fact. We also have Hubert, who is a bit mad, building some sort of computer and Adora Bell Dearheart's work with the gollums - which in fairness is relevant. Add to this a female lovestruck gollum, and finally a horny 300 year old dead wizard....
Pratchett clearly had a lot of ideas and new characters and as such it seems a lot was squeezed into this despite the fact that most really weren't required as part of the main plot. There is also a new central character- Mr Bent- with a very unusual background, who proves to be a key figure.
We may indeed see a lot of these charatcers again, maybe even developed a little more (the Hubert strand for example went nowhere) although the wizard now seems happy to stay where he is.
If I have any criticisms of this book it is that the dramatic ending seems a little rushed and unspectacular. I also feel that the watch, especially Vimes and Carrot, shouldn't have been here at all. Their roles appear here as nothing more than bog-standard policemen whoes job is just to arrest people, boring and irrelvant extras. Pratchett is playing a dangerous game by using the stars of his other books in such a mundane fashion.
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