A Sense of Doubt blog post #3770 - Book Review: When the Moon Hits Your Eye - By John Scalzi

A Sense of Doubt blog post #3770 - Book Review: When the Moon Hits Your Eye - By John Scalzi

SPOILERS!!
I cannot write this review without spoilers, so read on if you want spoilers or wait until after you read the book.


I want to start my review of John Scalzi's latest book When the Moon Hits Your Eye by reminding regular readers and informing new or very occasional ones that I am a HUGE fan of John Scalzi as both a writer and a human being. I have read every book he has ever published, some more than once, and I pre-order new ones and read them shortly after they are released. I usually "read" these books via audio, narrated by the great Wil Wheaton, so reading in this context is listening, but I also own the books for perusal.

Here's a collection of links from John's wonderful blog of his book's reviews and some of his own promotion:

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/03/25/when-the-moon-hits-your-eye-is-out-today-and-also-hello-i-am-on-book-tour-please-come-see-me/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2024/11/27/publishers-weekly-review-of-when-the-moon-hits-your-eye-is-in/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2024/11/24/when-the-moon-hits-your-eye-gets-a-starred-review-in-kirkus/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2024/12/13/when-the-moon-hit-your-eye-gets-a-starred-review-in-booklist/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/01/02/catch-an-excerpt-of-when-the-moon-hits-your-eye-on-polygon/


To be honest, I didn't like it at first.

I like Scalzi's humorous books as the last two fit that bill: Starter Villain and Kaiju Preservation Society. They are never JUST FOR HUMOR but blend humor with the narrative in a clever way that works for us readers. Even more "serious" books, such as the OLD MAN WAR series and the INTERDEPENDENCY series (The Collapsing Empire etc.) are full of humor as a counterpoint to the more serious parts and to make the characters well-rounded.

One of my favorite books by Scalzi is Red Shirts (2012), which is a parody of Star Trek that takes another turn with the three codas that end the novel.

I mention Red Shirts on purpose; hold that thought.

With When The Moon Hits Your Eye, at first, I thought it was just TOO SILLY. I am okay with humor. But the moon turning to CHEESE??? And not just the moon in orbit but all the moon rocks and samples on earth. And then, early on, Scalzi makes reasonably clear that sometimes things happen in the universe for which there is no explanation and that no explanation may ever be forthcoming.

And I was thinking to myself: what a total load of bullshit cop out nonsense is that???

The moon turns to cheese, and the author is not going to EXPLAIN WHY???? Or HOW???

I am almost gave up on the book right then.

ALMOST.

But as I mentioned, I am an ardent fan of Mr. Scalzi as both a writer and a human being.

I have faith.

And I have suffered through some really BAD AUDIO BOOKS. Sometimes the narrator is just atrocious. Sometimes the book is a stinker. Sometimes both things are true, so it's like having two hearts in your body both of which are convulsing in Myocardial Infarction. And in those cases, I keep listening. I hate quitting on things. Once I start a book, most of the time, I finish it, especially audio books.

Plus, I can listen to Wil Wheaton all day.

And I have faith in Scalzi.

And then I started to catch on to what he was doing.

In a series of vignettes, he was using the "Moon turning to cheese" as a flash point to comment on politics, science, economics, the wealthy, love, clickbait capitalization on a phenomenon, and  specially HUMAN NATURE (and so much more).

A series of vignettes depict people being people in reaction to this inexplicable and honestly ridiculous occurrence.

Because in times of difficulty, when things get dire, when we face extinction as a species, people will show you who they are. You will know who you can trust and who you cannot.

And then I was hooked, and I was on the roller coaster for the full ride.

And the book spanned all the human emotions, not just humor. And the commentary for our current state of the world was ON POINT.

And the whole time, with extinction of the species looming, possibly destruction of the planet, one will wonder as one reads: "how is this going to end?"

It seemed pretty bleak to chronicle in narrative a huge chunk of moon cheese crashing into the earth and obliterating most or all of the living things on the planet.

Though I warned against spoilers, I won't spoil the actual ending.

However, I invoked Red Shirts and the codas at the end that would have had me fall in love with it if I was not already in love with it, because here in When The Moon Hits Your Eye, Scalzi does something similar.

He goes after conspiracies, hoaxes, and again shows us how people will behave as people if we give them a chance.

Though not codas per se, the ending really makes up for my initial reaction that "this is too silly" and then some.

Other reviewers agree:

https://www.publishersweekly.com/9780765389091

A ridiculous premise—what if the moon actually was made of cheese?—is treated with a straight face in this cleverly entertaining sci-fi romp from Hugo Award winner Scalzi (the Old Man’s War series). A new lunar cycle begins with a confluence of odd phenomena: the crescent moon is far brighter than it should be, and all of the lunar mineral samples on Earth have turned into cheese. This leads to the discovery that the moon itself has suddenly and inexplicably become cheese—or an “organic matrix,” as NASA prefers to put it. The narrative takes the reader on a day by day journey through this unprecedented lunar cycle, with each day focusing on the perspective of a different character. This structure provides a comprehensive view of the transformation’s effects, from the expected (astronauts are disappointed that their upcoming lunar mission has been canceled) to the wildly unanticipated (including the actions of an Elon Muskesque billionaire, who seizes the moment for personal gain), while also returning to enough of the established characters to keep the potential apocalypse from feeling impersonal. Scalzi’s ability to balance scathing satire with heartfelt optimism shines. Agent: Ethan Ellenberg, Ethan Ellenberg Literary. (Mar.)


It might start out silly, but stick with it.

Do the audio!

Highly recommended!

Here's my GOOD READS review link (and this link is posted there).

MY GOOD READS BOOKS

Thanks for tuning in!!

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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2506.07 - 10:10

- Days ago: MOM = 3635 days ago & DAD = 289 days ago

- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I post Hey Mom blog entries on special occasions. I post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day, and now I have a second count for Days since my Dad died on August 28, 2024. I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of Mom's death, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of her death and sometimes 13:40 EDT for the time of Dad's death. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.