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| Making Money (Discworld) | 
 enlarge | Author: Terry Pratchett
Publisher: Harper
Category: Book
List Price: $25.95
Buy New: $2.96
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Avg. Customer Rating:  (101 reviews)
Sales Rank: 73197
Languages: English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 400
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 6 x 1.5
ISBN: 0061161640
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN: 9780061161643
ASIN: 0061161640
Publication Date: September 18, 2007
Release Date: September 18, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Not the best Discworld, alas March 20, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I've been sick the past few days--sick enough that I greeted the long-awaited new Discworld novel with languid indifference. But when I did get around to opening it, I expected the indifference to lift.
Umm. Well. There were some good sex-toy jokes, and a wonderful explanation of how some people turn kinky by way of an analogy with horseradish on a roast-beef sandwich progressing to a sandwich that's all horseradish and no beef.
The problem isn't the direction the series is taking. I'm fascinated by the civic changes Pterry's charting, from sewers to newspapers, stamps to paper money. I'm just not engaged by Moist von Lipwig, and not because he's named after a wet moustache.
He's a con man/entrepreneur. And I have very little sympathy for people like that. (Which means that yes, I should be examining my own issues around glibness and moneymaking.) Well, actually -- maybe sympathy isn't the problem. I love a lot of Eddie Murphy's work. The pleasure of a classic Eddie Murphy movie is watching him talk his way into or out of trouble. Murphy is full Trickster mode is hilarious, and he is also a glib con man.
Maybe Pratchett is just not putting Moist into enough different varieties of trouble. Maybe I'm not coming to these books with the appropriate attitude. I know what to expect with a Murphy movie, and it isn't what I look for in Pratchett.
On one level, the Discworld books are amusing, do-anything-for-a-joke pastiches that draw from high and low culture, mythology and TV ads and Shakespeare. But they are simultaneously several other things: powerful satires that skewer human foibles; warm, humane, and loving comedies; moral battlegrounds in which Right and Wrong are never quite where you last saw them. And I miss the moral outrage, the class awareness, the temptations and complexities of the great Discworld books. And, frankly, the laughs, because the laughs very often arise from the satire and the situation, not just from Pterry's famous wordplay. Making Money was just not that funny -- although that may be an artifact of my having read it while I was sick.
Time to re-read The Wee Free Men or Guards! Guards!
This review was written before the announcement of Pterry's Alzheimers' disease. But that might explain something.
Is Making Money Not As Funny? March 15, 2008
At his best, Terry Pratchett will swiftboat Swift, slaughter sacred cows for Cut-Me-Own-Throat's sausages inna bun and toss off one-liner's that cut to the heart of the human dilemma. "Making Money" is not Pratchett at his best, but it is still worth reading.
It is possible that economics, "the dismal science", has a flattening effect on Pratchett's pranks, but every economics student who has ever struggled with an economic model will laugh at The Glooper, which is so accurate it becomes a kind of economic voodoo doll. And the goings-on at the National Mint echo the real life dilemma that it costs more than a penny to make a penny.
Moist von Lipwig, the frenetic conman of "Going Postal" is now a victim of his own success. His life seems like one long meeting and he is reduced to climbing the walls. Literally. The Patrician decides to give him a challenge by putting him in charge of the bank. If the more mature Lipwig is less fun, the chairman of the bank, with his penchant for squeaky toys, is good for several chuckles and at least one large belly laugh. Only on Discworld, would a bank chairman sleep in his inbox, lick faces and play with chew toys.
 Another Excellent Pratchett Book March 15, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is exactly the kind of wonderful novel I have come to expect from Terry Pratchett. Once again he deftly combines very funny comedy with a human touch - characters we really care about and situations that oddly parallel our own experiences. I would not recommend reading this book if you haven't read "Going Postal", because much of the backstory of the characters is glossed over, but it is an excellent read.
 A poor imitation of Terry Pratchett March 7, 2008
2 out of 7 found this review helpful
Pick up your copy of Making Money and have a look at the copyright. Why, I ask you, is Lyn Pratchett listed under the copyright? Once I'd noticed this I went and had a look at another disappointing recent read, Thud, and saw the same was true for that book. Unfortunately the rest of my Pratchetts are stored away so I can't trace how far back this association stretches.
To be honest, bar the occasional sparkle, I have felt something missing in Terry Pratchett's work since the Fifth Elephant, with Carpe Jugulum the last classic to be released. I originally put it down to the fact that Pratchett wrote the odd uninspired piece (Eric, Sourcery), but have now cottoned on to the fact that he hasn't written something exceptional for the past decade.
I am a dedicated Pratchett fan and have two boxes full of his books, several of which I have read three or four times. I now realise that I haven't felt inclined to re-read any one of his last 13 books, barring an abortive attempt at re-reading Monstrous Regiment.
It therefore occurs to me that Pratchett has had a little help in writing his books over the past decade. Whilst there is the occasional classic Pratchett moment in Going Postal (the part where the moneymakers discussed the problems inherent in their working overtime was hilarious), for the rest the plot has been stitched to real world economics (and not very perceptively either, Pratchett seems to lack an appreciation of the dangers of fiat currency centralisation in private hands) and one finds tired reworkings of characters drift from scene to scene.
In fact the characters have become increasingly typecast and stereotypical. When you meet an Igor you know what types of jokes to expect, and the characters rarely surprise. Once that element of surprise is lost, so is the humour. It was always Pratchett's ability to say the unexpected that got me to laugh out loud.
The fact that Pratchett hasn't returned to the witches or Rincewind in years, sticking to the Ankh Morpork environment which allows him to draw parallels between an evolving fantasy city and modernity on earth, is also rather strange.
With recent reports indicating that Pratchett is suffering from early onset Alzheimer's the sad fact may be that the world's greatest satirical writer may simply have been forced to act as a contributor to his own work. I'm afraid the mere prospect of reading a ghost-written book is enough to put me off purchasing his future work. I think I may dig up my boxes of books and re-read timeless classics like Moving Pictures, Small Gods and Wyrd Sisters instead.
Most Well-Written Rehash Ever March 6, 2008
If Making Money shows anything about Pratchett's work, it shows that his writing style can more or less make anything seem interesting, even among what would be viewed as downright hack-ish done by just about anyone else, such as an overall plot recycling.
I enjoyed going through Making Money. So much so that I did my usual "Must find negative in every positive" glance at it. It was easy to find the the sole glaring flaw of the book. In the most cynical simplification one could make about it, it's a rehash of the first Moist Von Lipwig novel, Going Postal.
Both books relatively start with Lord Vetinari threatening Moist with a dreadful thing called opportunity. Both times Moist doesn't really want anything to do with it, but Vetinari... Vetinaris him into compliance. Both times Moist finds a facility in horrible disrepair, poorly managed, and completely ignored by the public. Both times Moist solves the problem set before him with unorthodox methods. Both times Moist deals with someone antagonizing him from completing his plans. Both times Moist is successful and Vetinari plots shoving another public service upon Moist.
Does this mean if you've read Going Postal you should skip Making Money, or you should read Going Postal instead if you haven't? No. Despite a whole paragraph's worth of ideas he has [...] from himself, he still manages to do the most important thing to someone reading a Discworld book. Entertain you. For that alone, I'd suggest you'd get it, for there are so many books out there which fail to do that.
Making Money is a shining example of the journey being so much more than the destination. A bad concept being executed excellently is much more entertaining than a great concept executed poorly(I'm looking at you, Tolkien.) Pratchett's characters, dialogue, and narrative will once again push you to finish the book as they have in the thirty or so books before. The satire is still fresh in spite of the redundant plot, and tosses you some food for thought here and there about how we do things here in reality.
That being said, when he inevitably gets to the next Moist book, which is likely to be on the subject of taxes in Ankh-Morpork, I do hope he doesn't commit the same sin again. Making Money could be compared to a routine episode of a television sitcom- entertaining but formulaic. You enjoy it, but it could be better. It really prevents Making Money from being great, forcing it to instead only be good.
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