Making Money by Terry Pratchett

Moist von Lipwig has whipped the Ankh-Morpork postal service into shape and is enjoying the fruits of his success...or rather he is bored out of his mind and in danger of falling into bad old habits as he tries to stave off boredom. The Patrician hits on the idea of giving Lipwig a new task: rescuing Ankh-Morpork's Royal Mint and associated bank, and turning them into a lean, dynamic operation fit for the Century of the Fruitbat. Unfortunately, the ossified staff and lunatic members of the family that owns the bank have other ideas, as does Lipwig's own girlfriend (or person adjacent to that position), whose quest to find golems and bring them to Ankh-Morpork may have succeeded rather more than she was expecting.

Making Money is the thirty-sixth Discworld novel, originally published in 2007. 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, 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.

On the other hand, the book does feature Pratchett providing a wonderful take on how the advent of AI (or here, the golems) will impact the standard capitalist model of Ankh-Morpork, which is presented in both a funny and thought-provoking way. One could perhaps accuse Pratchett of jumping on the bandwagon, save he was doing this sixteen years before the release of the first commercial LLM models. Pratchett's prescience is, not for the first time, impressive.

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 when appearing in cameos outside them (in this case various members of the City Watch) is a bit overdone, 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), which by this point is firmly establishing itself as the most well-explored and established city in the entire fantasy canon (or at least up there with Lankhmar, Waterdeep, Sigil and Minas Tirith).

Unusually for the series, the book also has an ending setting up a future Lipwig adventure, Raising Taxes...though Pratchett could never figure out how to make a book about taxes funny, so instead pivoted to the railways with Raising Steam later on. Perhaps more regrettably, this was the last book Pratchett completed before received his medical diagnosis of early onset Alzheimer's, the shadow of which would hang over all the subsequent books he wrote.

Making Money (****) is an enjoyable addition to the Discworld mythos, even if it doesn't do anything too spectacularly new.

A previous version of this review was published in 2008.

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Making Money by Terry Pratchett

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 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.

Making Money (****) is available now in the UK from Corgi Books and in hardcover in the USA from Haper Books. The US mass-market paperback is due out on 30 September 2008. Terry Pratchett's new, non-Discworld novel Nation will be released on 11 September 2008. He currently has three more Discworld novels on the go: Unseen Academicals, about the Unseen University's football team; I Shall Wear Midnight, the next Tiffany Aching novel for younger readers; and Raising Taxes, a sequel to Making Money. Expect to see them over the next year or two.