Making Money, the newest Discworld book by Terry Pratchett, is honestly a bit of a disappointment – one of the weaker Discworld books to come along in some time.
Don’t get me wrong – it’s still a Discworld book by Terry Pratchett, and as such, automatically better than ninety-five percent of the books out there. It’s still cleverly written, full of trenchant insights and often-brilliant gags, and Pratchett by this point knows the exact point at which a running gag becomes played out and thus always economizes them expertly. Which means that Making Money is, if nothing else, a really fun read.
But Pratchett now occupies the unenviable position of being forced to compete against himself, against some of the true works of genius he’s produced, like Night Watch and Small Gods and The Truth and Interesting Times, books which contained all of the great writing and deep insights and hilarious gags, but which also had deeply ambitious sense of scope and powerful moral arguments lurking just beneath the amusing surface.
Making Money is the second book to feature Moist Von Lipwig as the protagonist. Now, on the one hand, this is good, because Moist’s character was one of the best things about Going Postal and a welcome addition to the Discworld ouevre – the long-awaited “happy rogue” character, the criminal mind with a heart of gold, the Discworld equivalent of Han Solo in more than a few ways. Except Going Postal made it clear to both us and to Moist that his prior crimes were just that – crimes. So the character, instead of being flighty and silly, worked, and Going Postal became an excellent book about the dangers of the unfettered free market, with an excellent villain to boot (and one of the simplest and most time-honored methods for determining the best Pratchett books is to judge them by the quality of the villains).
The problem is that following up Going Postal is difficult, because in shifting Moist from the Post Office to the Royal Mint, you’re not really doing anything particularly new with him – and indeed that’s the biggest problem with Making Money. As a story, Going Postal worked because it was half process story (“how will Moist invent stamps and stuff?”) and half econo-politic screed. Making Money is a small bit of process story (“how will Moist get Ankh-Morpork off the gold standard and introduce paper money?”) and a bit of screed and… well, there’s also a bunch of stuff about golems, kind of. But mostly there’s no there there. The book barely even has a villain – Cosmo Lavish is honestly just pitiable rather than menacing.
Ultimately, the book distinctly feels like Pratchett marking time – an amusing fantasy novel about banking and monetary policy because at the end of Going Postal he hinted that there would be one. At the end of the book, Vetinari remarks that he’s going to need a new chief taxmaster, and that feels more like the spiritual sequel to Going Postal; contrasting the danger of the anarchic, selfish free market with the danger of the authoritarian, grasping government.
As Discworld books go, a weak B grade story. Recommended hardcover purchase only for completists (such as myself, of course). Still, however, better than ninety-five percent of what’s on the bookstore shelves, mind you.
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Is it better that Lost Continent or Jingo?
On balance I’d say it’s on par with Jingo and less good than Lost Continent (which to me is Pratchett experimenting with a different form of storytelling and mostly succeeding).
This was the first Discworld book I bought in hardcover, having only discovered the series a bit over a year ago. I felt pretty much the same as MGK here. I did buy Wintersmith in paperback today, so that should be good. Love them Feegles.
Minor quibble, LAST Continent not Lost. But a very good review of the book which did, much like Thud, feel like it was being used to set up things for a future book…
How did you feel about it having chapters? That’s a big departure for Pratchett — do you feel the format had any effect on the content?
It’s not that big a departure considering Pratchett’s been working with chapters for several books now – Going Postal and Wintersmith were both chaptered, and I can’t remember if Thud! and Night Watch were offhand but they might have been.
Thud was not chaptered; I believe Night Watch was not either. I think he puts chapters in the Tiffany Aching books and the Moist books (yes, yes) but no others.
I’ve been slowly reading through this blog, and though there was many an entry that I felt tempted to comment, I chose this one because, well, it’s Pratchett.
I concur with your review – Making Money was indeed fine, but not stellar. But then again I didn’t find Wintersmith to be anywhere near as good as the first two Tiffany Aching books, which to me are works of genius.
A while ago, I re-read pretty much the whole of Discworld, and was pleasantly surprised to see how much it holds up. Definitely the best books there are the Vimes series, some of the Witches, and for the sheer humour, the Rincewind series.
Now, I will admit that some of his books have left me a bit cold – I was very disappointed by Pyramids and by Hogfather. And Monstrous Regiment, though a fun book, was not a prime example of Pratchett quality.
All in all, I’d say my faves would be Eric, Moving Pictures, Lords and Ladies, Small Gods, Men at Arms, Soul Music, Interesting times, Maskerade, The Last Continent, Carpe Jugulum and Going Postal.
But above these are the best works he has done so far (though Nation comes quite close, it’s that good) : The Truth, Thief of time, The Amazing Maurice and his Amazing Rodents, and of course, Night Watch, the only book ever to make me cry because it was so goddamned well written.
But I digress…
Do I have your permission, Oh Mighty God King, to link your blog to mine own?
All the best!