  funny & lively
Not my sort of book at all, I read it because my book club chose it, but it was exceedingly clever, witty, sharp, very good allegory & superb dialogue. Whacky, original, fun. It's still not my sort of book, but I enjoyed romping through it.
Cold cash
Moist von Lipwig, tired after making the Post Office such as success in "Going Postal", is itching for a new challenge - Vetinari sees this and turns Lipwig onto the banks and currency. Thusly Moist enters into a similar story to his last one where instead of the post, he is tasked with rejuvenating the money. The usual cast of new characters who seem familiarly like some previous new characters are present as are stock favourites, Vetinari, Vimes, Carrot, and a cameo by Death.
As others have pointed out the similarities to "Going Postal" are glaring and this is the problem with "Making Money" in that it has the feeling that we've been here before, not 2 years ago in fact! Sadly, it's very predictable fare. As Nobbs points out to Colon in the first third of the book: "Odds, sarge?" "You're running a book, Nobby. You always run a book" "Can't get any takers, sarge. Foregone conclusion. Everyone thinks he'll win" (p.132). And he does. A foregone conclusion. Yawn.
It wouldn't be so bad if Pratchett had made some interesting villains or obstacles but what we get is a rich guy who wants to be Vetinari, and something ominous but vague about golems which is quickly resolved in a paragraph at the end. Hardly edge of the seat stuff. Even the "secret" of Mr Bent, one of the new characters, is poor stuff. It's built up throughout the book and then revealed in a very weak punchline at the end. Vetinari disappointingly is present through much of the book when before he would have a couple of pages at the beginning and a couple at the end. His menace and mystique goes from interesting and dark to being that of a stern headmaster who is nonetheless approachable.
Also, there isn't much satire here. What exactly is he lampooning? Pratchett's always very sharp on his targets in Discworld but there doesn't seem to be a target here except that he wanted to introduce paper money to the citizens of Ankh Morpork which, really, he could have mentioned in a throwaway line in a better Discworld book ("What's this paper money for? Where's the gold?" "Y'know that Lipwig fellow? Vetinari put him in charge of the banks, so that's what we've got now" "Oh").
Who'd have thought it with Pratchett's ingenuinty - a by-the-numbers Discworld book? And it's hinted at the end that Moist will reappear to re-do the Ankh Morpork tax system! Dear me, I sincerely hope that book never materialises. The character of Moist was good for one book, two is stretching it, three is too much.
I can't bash this too much being a lifelong Discworld fan. It's well written and has enough going on to hold the interest even if you can see what's going to happen a mile off. Still, a visit to Ankh Morpork is always welcome and it's fun to see the familiar characters once again. Ideally a new Death book would be best but hey ho I guess Terry's lost interest in him and is content to churn out Young Adult Discworld like the atrocious Tiffany Aching/Nac Mac Feegle books. I just hope Terry goes with two of his other ideas "Snuff" featuring Vimes, and/or "Scouting for Trolls" a riff on "Scouting for Boys" instead of rounding off the trilogy of Moist (Moist! That name!) books.
What happened to my favorite book series?
I own all of the Discworld series novels, both the young adult books and the adult ones.
I guess you could say that this is my favorite book series.
There are so many memorable characters, so many twists and turns to the plots, and everything always works in the end.
Besides a few initial novels, the books are very well written, extremely witty, and worth rereading especially during a finals week when your brain needs some relaxation time.
HOWEVER, throughout this series there have been two books that I have NOT enjoyed, one was "Eric" (in which I never laughed once) and the other was "Making Money."
As I read "Making Money," the book felt like a rough draft not a completed work.
Story tellers have to capture their audience's attention and weave a tale that keeps them spellbound and wanting more.
The flow of the story, the drive to the end that keeps you unable to set a book down, and (when you did put the book down) the excitement of hardly being able to wait for the ending - all that was missing from "Making Money."
All the pieces for a great plot were there, and there were glimpses of greatness in it (like Cosmo's ending), but somehow it all fell flat.
Many of the jokes, gags, and supposed silliness in Making Money, were just not that funny.
It felt like the author was looking for cheap laughs or his humor just failed to be well humerus (which is not something I usually associate with this author)
Old men having as much sex as possible before they died leaving behind closets full of sex toys, or old men without teeth goggling at scantily clad women - that is not funny; its disgusting and sad.
A chain smoking women who puts high heels through peoples feet - not funny.
A wealthy family out to kill each other and sue each other at the drop of a hat - how is that funny?
The man slowly dying from an infection in his finger spreading all over his body, was frankly gross.
Eating sheep a sheep's head - yuck.
A man who was frequently attacked by his dentures and killed by them - was gross.
In fact, the number of times I thought "gross" or "sad" in this book was pretty high.
Not at all what I was hoping to read when i picked up this book.
A clown does show up and throw pies in people's faces - but so what? It was not enough to save the book.
I know this review seems pretty harsh, but come on, this author can write so much better than this and this book was not worth my time or my money.
The idea is the same but author is different
The biggest mistake I made was of nor paying attention or being lazy to double cheeck and purchase paper-back. Book is of inferior quality. About the subject it keeps
you on your toes but by the middle it becomes apperent book was written by some one very familiar with Terry's style but not the knowledge. Language of this book to compare to his previous works would be as to compare Modarne author to authors of 19th century.
I didn't read it
I bought this book for my wife, so I didn't actually read it. I don't think she read it either because by the time it arrived our marriage was in shambles and she moved in with another guy shortly after that. I won't go so far as to say that the book had anything to do with that, but I'd like the information to be available for future shoppers.
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