John Scalzi, a Hugo Award winner, one of the most fun modern science fiction writers, and the mind behind the Old Man’s War series, Redshirts, and The Kaiju Preservation Society, asks his readers one question with his new novel: What would you do if that moon turned to cheese?
When the Moon Hits Your Eye explores that exact scenario, as in an instant, for no apparent reason, the entire moon and all its rock samples on Earth have transformed into what is thought to be cheese, or a “cheese-like organic matrix,” as NASA refers to it.
The book follows a plethora of different characters throughout the United States and their reactions to the moon’s transformation, including the U.S. President, tech billionaires, a small-town pastor, a trio of diner-dwelling seniors, and more. While there’s no linear story aside from the main moon plot, each chapter gauges the lives before and after what quickly becomes a pre-apocalyptic event.
Obviously, some of the more real-life scientific repercussions of the moon turning to cheese are put on the back burner in this book, but the Monty Python-esque absurdism mixed with the existential dread blend well, much in the same way as Adam McKay’s hit sci-fi comedy Don’t Look Up.
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The comedy comes with everything from the characters trying to guess what kind of cheese the moon is made of, to Hollywood executives pitching nothing but cheese-themed movies and TV shows, to billionaires racing for the title of the first human to eat the moon cheese.
While the novel is a lot more anthological than I expected (or would have liked), recurring characters do pop up every few chapters. Scalzi typically does a wonderful job developing his characters, even in just a few pages.
Unfortunately, some of the more emotional chapters of When the Moon Hits Your Eye left me wanting more from those characters, while the focus on the shenanigans of billionaires and the devious plans of financial businesses left me wanting less. However, the magnifying glass on late-stage, pre-apocalyptic capitalism was kind of the point of the overarching story, as is the case with a lot of effective sci-fi writing.
Without spoiling anything, the ending’s ambiguity left me feeling like nothing in the story mattered, and that nothing was explained. Sure, one of the themes of the book is that sometimes things just aren’t explainable (until they are), and we kind of just have to roll with the punches when it comes to things out of our control.
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In my opinion, the lack of any kind of resolution or explanation (aside from conspiracies and speculative ones) keeps this book from moving from good to great territory (though it has a 3.87 on Goodreads).
Although When the Moon Hits Your Eye comes off more as a collection of short stories that sometimes are referential to one another, instead of a conglomerate novel, it’s still a hilarious, fascinating read, and a great palate cleanser when you need something a little absurd. I can’t really offer a better way to write a book about the moon turning to cheese, so with that in mind, I recommend giving this one a go.
When the Moon Hits Your Eye is now available at all major book retailers and published by Tor Books.
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