Making money book review terry pratchett

Amazingly, former arch-swindler-turned-Postmaster General Moist von Lipwig has somehow managed to get the woefully inefficient Ankh-Morpork Post Office running like. Now the supreme despot Lord Vetinari is asking Moist if he’d like to make some real money. Vetinari wants Moist to resuscitate the venerable Royal Mint—so that perhaps it will no longer cost considerably more than a penny to make a penny. Moist doesn’t want the job. However, a request from Ankh-Morpork’s current ruling tyrant isn’t a «request» geview se, more like a «once-in-a-lifetime-offer-you-can-certainly-refuse-if-you-feel-you’ve-lived-quite-long-enough. But he’ll soon be making lethal enemies as well as money, especially joney he can’t figure out where all the gold has gone. Enter your mobile number or email address below and we’ll send you a link to download the free Kindle App. Then you can start reading Kindle books on your smartphone, tablet, or computer — no Kindle device required. To get the free app, enter your mobile phone number. Sir Terry Pratchett was the internationally bestselling author of more than thirty books, including his phenomenally successful Discworld series. He died in at the age of sixty-six. Would you like to tell us about a lower price?

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Wagner Support SF Reviews. Book cover art by Scott McKowan left. In my parents’ small hometown, there was a short-lived but nicely appointed museum on Texas’ early settler history, where an inordinate portion of the display space was given over to old currency. Paper money, as I’m sure everyone knows, was originally just scrip. Your boss or foreman or C. It wasn’t long before people just began trading the paper money itself. It’s as if the artists commissioned to design them were, to a man, frustrated wannabe Rembrandts whose life ambition was to have space in the Louvre and were doing the next best thing. Seems odd to me, the idea of going to a general store and handing over the equivalent of a miniature post-Renaissance masterwork in exchange for a sack of potatoes. But as Terry Pratchett points out here, if you’re stranded on a desert island, which of the two really has value? Making Money is, as you might have guessed by now, all about the money. By all rights, no series that has gone on for over thirty volumes should continue to produce stories this good.

A clever romp through a weird world of finance, sex toys and lecherous ghosts

History Publication Information. Rate this book. The Ankh-Morpork Post Office is running like. The mail is delivered promptly; meetings start and end on time; five out of six letters relegated to the Blind Letter Office ultimately wend their way to the correct addresses. So it’s somewhat disconcerting when Lord Vetinari summons Moist to the palace and asks, «Tell me, Mr. Lipwig, would you like to make some real money? He’s referring, rather, to the Royal Mint of Ankh-Morpork, a venerable institution that has run for centuries on the hereditary employment of the Men of the Sheds and their loyal outworkers, who do make money in their spare time. Unfortunately, it costs more than a penny to make a penny, so the whole process seems somewhat counterintuitive. Oh, and the chief clerk is probably a vampire. But before Moist has time to fully consider Vetinari’s question, fate answers it for him.

Making Money

Following on from his successful introduction of the character Moist von Lipwig, Terry Pratchett decided that he would bring the ex-con artist back in an attempt to restore the Ankh-Morpork Mint. In short, Pratchett once again gets an entire book to have his way with the utilities and the running of a city. The story once again follows Moist as he attempts to create something out of — not so much nothing — but rather, out of a mess of idiosyncratic employees, family feuds, creatures from the night and unhelpful citizens. Now the owner of a dog who is the majority holder and subsequently the chairman of the Ankh-Morpork bank, Moist must attempt to bring the bank into the Century of the Anchovy. Thankfully, for story narratives sake, everyone is against him except for Vetinari, despite being happy to sit on the sidelines and watch. One gets the feeling that, given the opportunity, Pratchett could very well set himself up as Post Master, dictator, Chief of Police, or in this case, Economic Guru something we could have use of right now and have no problem succeeding. And though once again the realities have been spun around, turned on their head, and then promptly stashed in a heshen sack, thrown into a river and run over by a yachting race, there is still a scary grain or barn full of truth. Faced with a disc shaped world, riding through space on the back of four elephants who themselves are on the back of a giant space fairing turtle, Pratchett decided that he could still mimic Earth. Faced with witches, wizards, trolls, dwarves and every creature that haunted your cupboard or under your bed at night, Pratchett decided it was no different than multicultural London or Melbourne. No, Pratchett long ago reached a pinnacle most writers would only dream of reaching, and has since stayed there writing books that over and over again rate 10 out of Making Money is definitely a Pratchett book you have to have on your shelf.

All reviews for: The Discworld Series

Boris Johnson’s candidacy for mayor of London could have come straight from a Terry Pratchett novel: a lovable buffoon with no discernible accomplishments 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 Discworldthen 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? 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.

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? 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 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. 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? 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. Topics Books. Fiction Terry Pratchett Patrick Ness reviews.

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All reviews for: The Discworld Series

Boris Johnson’s candidacy for mayor of London could have come straight from a Terry Pratchett novel: a lovable buffoon with no discernible accomplishments 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 making money book review terry pratchett 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 Discworldthen 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.

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