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Synopsis:
From the New York Times bestselling author of Starter Villain comes an entirely serious take on a distinctly unserious subject: what would really happen if suddenly the moon were replaced by a giant wheel of cheese.
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.
Review:
In the end notes of When the Moon Hits Your Eye, John Scalzi states that this novel is the third in a trilogy of novels based on theme: ordinary people being thrust into extraordinary situations. The first two in the trilogy The Kaiju Preservation Society and Starter Villain are both excellent stories that explore different aspects of this idea. I did not start this novel with this in mind. I started it because it is the new John Scalzi book. I cracked the book only knowing the simplest part of the premise: The moon has turned into cheese.
The novel does not read as a novel as much as a collection of stories around the reactions of the moon just one day turning into cheese (well a cheese like substance. NASA will not commit to calling it cheese). With each chapter being a day in the lunar cycle, it shows this singular event through the eyes of people all over America, from NASA scientists and astronauts, to politicians and billionaires, to regular people like preachers and Reddit users who do know know whether or not this is a hoax. The novel starts without much direction, but halfway through, an event on the cheese moon brings an impending doom to Earth. From this point forward, the people in Scalzi’s novel change their focus. We spend every new chapter and every day with characters who are living with the knowledge that their imminent death is coming. Their actions and reactions become more humane, more focused on coming together to show that friends, family, and love are more important than all of the other things that generally distract us. There are moments in When the Moon Hits Your Eye that display honest emotions and heart.
When I am reading or writing, I always think about two principles of the stories that I like to read and tell. The first is “No story is perfect, but it has to be told well.” The second is “Never take yourself too seriously.” John Scalzi’s novels are great examples of these two ideas. When the Moon Hits Your Eye is not a perfect novel, nor does it pretend to be. There is a chapter toward the end of the novel that actual explores this idea and says the same thing. When you try to be perfect, you pull all of the life out of the story. The second, not taking himself too seriously? He has written a novel about the moon turning into cheese and uses pretty much any cheese pun he can think of. He puts easter eggs throughout the novel (including a law firm with the names of the history of bass players in Metallica), but he does his best to balance the silliness with an actually readable and heartfelt story. When the Moon Hits Your Eye is not his best novel, and it is definitely not perfect, but it is enjoyable because it does not try to be serious at all.
I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Reviews of other John Scalzi novels:
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