A Moist Return

Making Money; Terry Pratchett (Harper; 2007; ISBN 978-0-06-116164-3; cover art by Scott McKowan).

Now I know I was supposed to read Pratchett's Reaper Man next, but...an early Sunday morning where Reaper Man was in a bedroom and I was not led me to take this one down from the shelves and start on it before I had finished the other volume.

Ah, what fun! Hard on solving the problems at the Ankh-Morpork Post Office in Going Postal, Moist von Lipwig (one of Pratchett's best characters, along with Death and Commander Sam Vines) is given a new challeng: run the banking system of the city. The chairman of the bank he is running is a dog. There's a mysterious character who is very good with numbers but seems a bit...twitchy. One of the Igor clan makes an appearance. There's an analytical engine, marching golems, the City Watch, scheming family members, old acquaintances that von Lipwig would rather not run into, golems with sexual identity issues...probably the best story of his that I've read to date!

There are a million balls in the air, and you watch with increasing fascination and a feeling of impending dread while von Lipwig tries to keep them all in the air. Things don't turn out as he planned, but he (and you) will have fun when you reach the end.