Making Money sees the return of reformed con-man Moist von Lipwig. Becoming bored with the now-smoothly running post office, Moist is still reluctant to accept the Patrician’s suspiciously polite offer to turn his talents to the bank and mint. He soon inherits the chairman (Mr Fusspot the dog), however, and then it’s on, with the mad Lavish family as directors, a Fatal Attraction golem secretary, his disapproving Chief Clerk and something strange happening in the cellar.
I’ve read other reviews which found this book flat without the ‘belly laughs’ of previous books – which I find ironic since I generally find the books, especially the later ones, clever more than laugh-out-loud hilarious and yet this time I threw it down and laughed for about five minutes straight at the beauty of one of Vetinari’s lines (‘Incidentally, I think you were needlessly silly…’)
All right, I found the use of exclamation marks heavy, especially in the occasional cameo line from Vimes (My Very Favourite Character), since he never struck me as a man who often spoke with exclamation marks, and Moist was nowhere near as flamboyant as he was in Going Postal, his first outing, though he’s still charming and it’s good to see him developing. I also found the golem sub-plot a little disjointed from the rest – it almost feels like set-up, which hopefully it is.
But still, 25 years of Discworld makes a world I look forward to visiting every time. There’s the plot and the characters, clever and funny and satiric, and then there’s the world itself, just like ours only sideways. It has been a highlight of the series to be able to watch an artificial world evolve and develop in the way Discworld and the city of Ankh-Morpork have.
The wordplay in Making Money, too, reaches new heights of delight, and I had the feeling pTerry was having a lot of fun. So did I (except it was over far too soon, I gulped it in a day).
Coming soon from Pratchett is The Folklore of Discworld and Nation, a non-Discworld ‘younger readers’ novel. I previously discussed him here.
Interested in Making Money? Buy it from Fishpond.com.au
