Review copy was received from NetGalley. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
When the Moon Hits Your Eye by John Scalzi Published by Tor on March 25, 2025
Genres: Science Fiction Fantasy
Pages: 336
Format: eARC
Source: NetGalley
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It's a whole new moooooon.
One day soon, suddenly and without explanation, the moon as we know it is replaced with an orb of cheese with the exact same mass. Through the length of an entire lunar cycle, from new moon to a spectacular and possibly final solar eclipse, we follow multiple characters -- schoolkids and scientists, billionaires and workers, preachers and politicians -- as they confront the strange new world they live in, and the absurd, impossible moon that now hangs above all their lives.
If there is anyone who can take a ridiculous idea like the moon turning to cheese and make it into a book that was funny, absurd, silly, heartwarming and thought provoking it is John Scalzi. When the Moon Hits Your Eye is a collections of stories set in a world where the moon has turned to cheese and how various people across the United States deal with that in a ‘day in the life’ kind of fashion.
We start off the lunar month with the discovery the moon is wrong and made of cheese. Every chapter is a day focusing on a different set of characters and how they are coping with this new discovery. While there is a little talk of how this happened, that is not the focus of the story. It has more to do with how it impacts peoples lives and what they think of the phenomenon. Each chapter is a day in the lunar cycle leading up to a lunar eclispe.
I enjoyed how every chapter had a different focal PoV. From the NASA astronauts whose mission to the moon got scrapped, to a cheese shop with a long standing family feud, the guys down at the local diner, a writer who accidentally became famous due to the content of his just released book and so many others characters and how the moon changing has effected their lives. Each ‘a day in the life’ had something I enjoyed in it that added to the overall whole of the book.
Scalzi says in the afterword that this book finished up a group of stories that include The Kaiju Preservation Society and Starter Villain. You do not have to have read them to enjoy When the Moon Hits Your Eye, however they follow the same concept when he was writing them of “ordinary people dealing with an extraordinary high concept situation in a modern setting”.
I enjoyed this book so much more than I thought I would. The chapter stories with the various characters were fun. Billionaires fighting over who will be first to eat a piece of the moon, friends in a group chat talking about the eclipse party they can’t make it to, NASA explaining how the moon is now volatile with volcanoes of molten cheese and so on. Just a lot of great and fun stories, even a few emotional ones.
If you are a person that can live with some loosey-goosey science to have a good time this could be just what you were looking for.
About John Scalzi
Born: May 10, 1969
Lived in: LA’s Eastern San Gabriel Valley; Chicago; Fresno, CA; Sterling, VA; Bradford, OH
Education: The Webb Schools of California; The University of Chicago (AB, Philosophy with Allied Fields)
Employment: Film Critic/Columnist; Writer/Editor; Freelance writer; Novelist
Personal: Married. One child. Several pets.
Bibliography: It’s here. New York Times best seller in fiction. Awards won include the Hugo, the Locus, the Audie, the Seiun and the Kurd Lasswitz. Recipient of the 2016 Governors Award for the Arts in Ohio. Works translated into 20+ languages.
Other: Creative Consultant for the Stargate: Universe television series. Writer for the video game Midnight Star, by Industrial Toys. Former president (7/10 – 6/13) of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Executive Producer for Old Man’s War and The Collapsing Empire, both currently in development for television.
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I’ve heard the phrase “I enjoyed it more than I thought I would” from lots of reviewers, including me, lol. It was a lot of fun😁
Haha, right. I mean I thought it was just going to be a little ridiculous and then it ended up being only slightly ridiculous mixed with a really good time.
This one just didn’t seem like my thing from the summary, but I feel people might be convincing me…
I’m not sure how many people are like…hey a book about the moon being cheese, that is totally my book.
Still, Scalzi writes so well that he turned this into a really interesting and eclectic story
“loosey-goosey science” I could get behind that!
Yep, didn’t get too caught up on the how of it, just stuck to the cheesier side.
I’m listening to this right now. The author read the first couple chapters when he visited KC last fall, and I knew I would love this as much as the other two that are the ones he mentions at the end. I hope he will write more like these though, they are my favorites of his books!
Nice…I enjoy the audios for this author as he usually uses Wil Wheaton who is fantastic. Hope you enjoy the story.