Making Money
I'm getting closer and closer to the end of Terry Pratchett's Discworld
series. It's a good thing there's another forthcoming book to look
forward to. That book is even set to continue to story of Moist von
Lipwig, the protagonist of Making Money. Though I think his story may be played out.
The problem with Lipwig (and Making Money) is that's he's a reformed con man, but he's far more interesting when he's conning people. So all of his growth from Going Postal has to be reverted in the first half of this book to make the second half interesting. And even then, things spiral out of his control more than I would have liked. He's ultimately saved by a blindingly obvious Deus Ex Machina (you can see it coming from the first few pages).
For all that, the book does tackle some interesting themes, namely banking, and the changover from the gold standard to a much more elusive standard: trust. The book pulls back from really sticking to this idea, resulting in a rather disappointing ending. But the early chapters are really good. And there are some neat parallels between Moist's con man persona and the bankers who promise everyone they can withdraw all their money from the bank anytime they want, provided they never actually do that, since there isn't actually enough money to support such a move.
The book is certainly timely; it was released in 2007. And there were some good ideas in most of it. I felt like everything fell apart at the end, though. Pratchett didn't stick to his metaphor, which ended up weakening the whole thing. And one of the plot lines is so completely disconnected from the rest of the story that it's obvious it only exists to save the day at the end. Ultimately this was far from the best Discworld novel (though it is still a reasonably entertaining book).
The problem with Lipwig (and Making Money) is that's he's a reformed con man, but he's far more interesting when he's conning people. So all of his growth from Going Postal has to be reverted in the first half of this book to make the second half interesting. And even then, things spiral out of his control more than I would have liked. He's ultimately saved by a blindingly obvious Deus Ex Machina (you can see it coming from the first few pages).
For all that, the book does tackle some interesting themes, namely banking, and the changover from the gold standard to a much more elusive standard: trust. The book pulls back from really sticking to this idea, resulting in a rather disappointing ending. But the early chapters are really good. And there are some neat parallels between Moist's con man persona and the bankers who promise everyone they can withdraw all their money from the bank anytime they want, provided they never actually do that, since there isn't actually enough money to support such a move.
The book is certainly timely; it was released in 2007. And there were some good ideas in most of it. I felt like everything fell apart at the end, though. Pratchett didn't stick to his metaphor, which ended up weakening the whole thing. And one of the plot lines is so completely disconnected from the rest of the story that it's obvious it only exists to save the day at the end. Ultimately this was far from the best Discworld novel (though it is still a reasonably entertaining book).
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