One of my two or three favorite Discworld novel is entitled Going Postal, and it follows the actions of a young con man who has been spared the hangman's noose by the city's leader in order to revive the dying Post Office. The young hero uses all the tricks up his sleeve that he learned on the wrong side of the law to help him defeat the villainous heads of the Grand Trunk Company (a network of semaphore towers meant to represent the Internet in our world). The Grand Trunk obviously does not want the Post Office's competition. The story has a happy enough ending, and the Post Office is revived.
Making Money turns its attention to the main city's current banking crisis. Most people do not trust or use banks, minted coins are burdensome and expensive to make, and the city needs to borrow a huge sum of money for a massive public works project. The city's leader (Lord Vetinari) calls upon our hero from Going Postal to step in and save the Royal Bank and the Mint from foolish machinations of the wealthy family that owns them.
The book looks at several interesting topics. Most notably, it explores the difficulty in moving from the gold standard and also the challenges of getting people to embrace paper money. There are a few moments of tense action, and some interesting characters, but the novel failed to move me like Going Postal did. While Going Postal looked at some issues that are fairly current (deregulation, postal system v. Internet), Making Money dealt with topics that were resolved a bit further in the past. It was not quite as poignant to me, and the story was a bit spotty and episodic. Still, there was enough financial-related humor to warm the heart of any would-be accountant, and several scenes did make me laugh out loud. I give it 3 antelopes and a baby.
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"Ware the Urserers, it's the Century of the Anchovy!"
I have had the pleasure of being the first patron to check out my local library's copies of the latest two regular Discworld novels (Thud! from Marstons Mills, Mass., and Making Money from my local branch of the Sheffield Libraries and Archives). That might be some indicator level of how much a Discworld fan I am, or just what I dork I am. (I must say that Discworld does seem to be very popular among librarians).
Something about this book felt as if it were particularly well rounded for Mr. Pratchett. It seems to go beyond his newfound use of not only chapters, and chapter "hints"/teasers, but into a realm of balanced storytelling, which is not exactly what one would expect of rollicking satire. Here are some particularly amusing and interesting points that I noticed.
1: The hero doesn't quite win. Vimes and the Watch, in particular among Pratchett's normal protagonists, always seem to scrape by with luck, gumption and wit. Von Lipwig doesn't have quite the same luck, despite being one devil of a lucky and skilled con man.
2: There is a character with a terrible secret from his past, that endless drama and fantasy gimmick. Oh, but what a terrible secret it is...
3: the Wizards and Watch, Pratchett's cast from many a romp through Ankh-Morporkh play the most restrained cameo roles possible. And the other main protagonist: Death, spends about 1 page performing his job. I can't remember another Ankh Morporkh story without any of those three in a main role(Going Postal must be an obvious exception). Of course, Lord Vetinari is there ruling the city with his iron will and monofilament wit, but it would be hard to avoid him.
4: There is a dog, and it actually is more than reasonably amusing! For me this is a great improvement on previous canine appearances in Discworld.
It didn't seem that Mr. Pratchett could keep writing these books without running out of jokes, interesting thoughts or begin trailing off in quality. Perhaps since this is the first time I have encountered Moist von Lipwig, I would give it a higher rating than our blogger has. ...and I found myself chuckling to myself at least as many times as with earlier Discworld novels.
I have just one last rhetorical question for Mr. Weil and any other Pratchett fans: In the Discworld canon, is this a Lipwig book or a golem book?
I actually struggled a bit with my rating of this book. There were indeed several humorous scenes and characters - I'd say the joke content was on par with most other Discworld books. Still, I felt that the story was more disjointed than in Pratchett's very best. Even so, it's a book that improves upon subsequent readings to me. After tutoring an economics student on the subject of money in the macroeconomic perspective, I found this book far more interesting and funny. I would give it four antelopes were I to rate it today.
As for Lipwig or golems, that is an interesting point! Golems factor almost as heavily in Going Postal as they do in Making Money, and I'm not sure what to make of that. Moist is clearly the main character, but they could just as easily be Vetinari books. They certainly represent a new story arc in Discworld novels, and it's a very refreshing one.
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