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Summary
Summary
'As bright and shiny as a newly minted coin; clever, engaging and laugh-out-loud funny' The Times
The Discworld is very much like our own - if our own were to consist of a flat planet balanced on the back of four elephants which stand on the back of a giant turtle, that is . . .
Whoever said you can't fool an honest man wasn't one.
The Royal Bank is facing a crisis, and it's time for a change of management.
There are a few problems that may arise with the job . . . The Chief Cashier is almost certainly a vampire - there's something nameless in the cellar and it turns out that the Royal Mint runs at a loss. Meanwhile, people actually want to know where the money's gone. It's a job for life.
But, as former con-man Moist von Lipwig is learning, that life is not necessarily a long one.
He's about to be exposed as a fraud, but if he's lucky the Assassins' Guild might get him first. In fact, a lot of people want him dead. Everywhere he looks he's making enemies.
Oh. And every day he has to take the Chairman for walkies.
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The Discworld novels can be read in any order but Making Money is the second book in the Moist von Lipwig series.
Author Notes
Terry Pratchett was on born April 28, 1948 in Beaconsfield, United Kingdom. He left school at the age of 17 to work on his local paper, the Bucks Free Press. While with the Press, he took the National Council for the Training of Journalists proficiency class. He also worked for the Western Daily Press and the Bath Chronicle. He produced a series of cartoons for the monthly journal, Psychic Researcher, describing the goings-on at the government's fictional paranormal research establishment, Warlock Hall. In 1980, he was appointed publicity officer for the Central Electricity Generating Board with responsibility for three nuclear power stations.
His first novel, The Carpet People, was published in 1971. His first Discworld novel, The Colour of Magic, was published in 1983. He became a full-time author in 1987. He wrote more than 70 books during his lifetime including The Dark Side of the Sun, Strata, The Light Fantastic, Equal Rites, Mort, Sourcery, Truckers, Diggers, Wings, Dodger, Raising Steam, Dragons at Crumbling Castle: And Other Tales, and The Shephard's Crown. He was diagnosis with early onset Alzheimer's disease in 2007. He was knighted for services to literature in 2009 and received the World Fantasy award for life achievement in 2010. He died on March 12, 2015 at the age of 66.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (1)
Guardian Review
Boris Johnson's candidacy for mayor of London could have come straight from a Terry Pratchett novel: a lovable buffoon with no discernible accom-plishments becomes a leading contender for just those very qualities (ie buffoonery, Liverpool-bashing - is there anything else?). Bullyingly jovial, faintly sinister and with no apparent plans for the city except to promise the exact opposite kind of tyranny as the current tyrant-incumbent, all that remains is for him to be revealed as a multi-tentacled demon to make a jolly good Discworld novel. Vote for him, it may yet happen. If you've never read Discworld , then perhaps you're unaware that what started out as a very funny fantasy spoof quickly became the finest satirical series running. It has dealt with - among many other topics - racism, sexism, journalism, death, war, the army, the Inquisition, the ambiguous nature of good and evil, and the uncomfortable power of narrative, all in novels that are smart, hilarious and humane. Come to think of it, if you've never read a Discworld novel, what's the matter with you? Making Money is the second of the series to feature conman Moist van Lipwig. Introduced in Going Postal , Moist was narrowly saved from hanging by Lord Vetinari, the ruthlessly efficient despot of Ankh-Morpork ("Do I need to wear a badge that says tyrant?"), and put in charge of rejuvenating its moribund postal service. Beneath the delightful silliness and the slendidly awful puns lay a startlingly savage attack on the greed of privatisation. The scurrilous investors in Ankh-Morpork's communications system were an obvious attack on a denationalised rail service, cutting corners and endangering lives, all the while offering meaningless platitudes about "improved directives" and apologies for the inconvenience of being killed. In Making Money , Moist moves on to the Royal Mint. Banks in Ankh-Morpork are failing, and who better to give them a shot in the arm than an admitted thief and smooth-talking showman? "The city bleeds, Mr Lipwig," says Vetinari, "and you are the clot." The satirical punches are exchanged for a more thoughtful, philosophical approach. What is money? Is it really nothing more than the agreement we all make about it? Is it therefore really nothing more than a form of showmanship? Things, of course, do not go smoothly. The bank's chairman is an excitable little dog called Mr Fusspot, left 51% of the shares in the deceased chairwoman's will. The chief clerk of the bank, Mr Bent, hates Moist on sight as a committer of that worst of sins: silliness. There is suspicion, in fact, that Mr Bent may indeed be a vampire. He is not; he is something much worse. And in the basement, a Mint worker has managed to build The Glooper, an analogy engine that represents the economic life of the city through water-filled glass tubes. But analogies have power in Discworld, and The Glooper may now be controlling the city rather than vice versa. And what is Moist's girlfriend, the chain-smoking, flinty-as-flint Adora Belle Dearheart, doing digging up more golems outside of town? Would walking, talking golems made of pure gold mess up the gold standard? And who is the mysterious Cribbins, come to blackmail Moist over his shady past? Just when you think you've got everything figured out, Pratchett goes in a completely unexpected direction, opening up new questions about power and empire while incidentally laying fertile groundwork for yet more stories to come. Because even though Making Money is the 36th Discworld novel, Pratchett isn't resting on his laurels. Just as Lord Vetinari is beginning the Undertaking to modernise Ankh-Morpork with underground railways, so is Pratchett refreshing his series. In addition to the ongoing City Watch and Death strands, the Witches strand has been redirected into the delightful Tiffany Aching novels for kids, and here with Moist's second appearance (and hints at the end of what his third might be) Pratchett has created a fresh new character to poke serious fun at City institutions. As a novel on its own, Making Money is not quite as successful as Going Postal , lacking some of that book's forward drive. There also seems to be a division of targets between banks and mints which is never fully reconciled, but there are sharp questions here about why we trust banks and good reasons why we shouldn't, as well as the nature of money itself. Banking, as Mr Bent puts it, rests on "a tacit understanding that we will honour our promise to exchange a dollar for a dollar's worth of gold provided we are not, in point of fact, asked to". Which would be funny if the customers of Northern Rock hadn't just discovered how true it actually is. What makes this and all the Discworld books special, though, is their humanity. Halfway through Making Money , someone is babbling pseudo-religious nonsense about the "last shall be first". But what about all those "who aren't first but who aren't really last, either?" a decent woman asks. "You know, jogging along, doing their best?" These are the people that Pratchett cares about, the ones jogging along, the ones who get taken advantage of by banks and large corporations and bad government. He won't shirk at making fun of them, but he also loves them and it's this big-heartedness that makes these novels so smart, so moral, so good. We are exactly the sort of very silly blighters who would elect a Boris Johnson, but Pratchett would also argue that we're the same sort who would find a way to let him strangle himself on his own tentacles. So, there's hope yet. Patrick Ness's Things About Which I Know Nothing is published by Harper Perennial. To order Making Money for pounds 17.99 with free UK p&p call Guardian book service on 0870 836 0875. Caption: article-pratchett.1 Making Money is the second of the series to feature conman Moist van Lipwig. Introduced in Going Postal , Moist was narrowly saved from hanging by Lord Vetinari, the ruthlessly efficient despot of Ankh-Morpork ("Do I need to wear a badge that says tyrant?"), and put in charge of rejuvenating its moribund postal service. Beneath the delightful silliness and the slendidly awful puns lay a startlingly savage attack on the greed of privatisation. The scurrilous investors in Ankh-Morpork's communications system were an obvious attack on a denationalised rail service, cutting corners and endangering lives, all the while offering meaningless platitudes about "improved directives" and apologies for the inconvenience of being killed. What makes this and all the Discworld books special, though, is their humanity. Halfway through Making Money , someone is babbling pseudo-religious nonsense about the "last shall be first". But what about all those "who aren't first but who aren't really last, either?" a decent woman asks. "You know, jogging along, doing their best?" These are the people that [Terry Pratchett] cares about, the ones jogging along, the ones who get taken advantage of by banks and large corporations and bad government. He won't shirk at making fun of them, but he also loves them and it's this big-heartedness that makes these novels so smart, so moral, so good. We are exactly the sort of very silly blighters who would elect a [Boris Johnson], but Pratchett would also argue that we're the same sort who would find a way to let him strangle himself on his own tentacles. So, there's hope yet. - Patrick Ness.