Let me begin by saying that I have loved everything that I read by Scalzi,...until now. This book felt so random to me, maybe a thought exercise in what would so and so do if the moon turned to cheese and then all those scenarios put together to make a book. It just didn't play out well for me.

You already know this book is great. I won't hesitate to recommend to anyone who might be even a little interested.

I love John Scalzi! There isn't enough wackadoo authors out there that can hit the notes in the right way. This was that Wallace and Gromit moon cheese episode with heart.

I'm a big fan of John Scalzi's particular brand of silly sci-fi humour. Starter Villain was one of my favourite books of 2024, so I was particularly keen to read his newest release, in which the moon suddenly and inexplicably turns into cheese.

When the Moon Hits Your Eye is a book told in vignettes rather than a traditional narrative. The book begins on the day the moon undergoes its miraculous change and follows a new set of characters each day that follows. Between news reports, Reddit posts, and other media, we get an idea of how people react to their reality being turned upside down. This isn't my favourite narrative style, but it is effective in covering a large number of people and experiences, from the President of the United States to everyday people just trying to get by. I think he does try to do a little too much with this narrative style and number of characters - you don't get a chance to connect with the characters, even though some appear more than once. Some of the stories are absolutely fantastic - particularly the political sex scandal, the rival cheese shops, the young fantasy author trying to get published, and a particularly grim taping of Saturday Night Live - and made me laugh out loud or feel a lot of feelings. I think I personally would have preferred a more traditional narrative with these vignettes sprinkled in for texture, but that's just my personal preference.

That said, I really enjoyed the insights into humanity's actions and reactions to the lunar change. Imagine everything we've ever known about physics suddenly going out the window. How would you react? The selfishness, the panic, and the camaraderie we see feels particularly realistic, especially post-pandemic. I really enjoyed the stories of regular people and how they processed their new reality - it's not all about people in power heroically trying to save us all.

When the Moon Hits Your Eye is a fun science fiction read filled with Scalzi's signature humour. While it's not my favourite of his books, it's a solid read and I'd recommend it to fans of his work and apocalyptic fiction.

3.5 out of 5 stars

**Thank you to Tor Books and NetGalley for the eARC of this title!!**

I love Scalzi’s work and am so excited to get to this one!!! I ended up purchasing this book and will be posting a full review on my channels soon.

This was a very fun read! Funny, thoughtful, and far more elaborately considered for the ridiculous premise. Think Neal Stephenson by way of Animaniacs, or Space Force but even snarkier, and you'll catch the energy.
This sort of a networking novel (the zenith for me being Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad) with the chapter per day structure gives us an opportunity to see the dauntingly absurd situation from many different angles. As a result, we are pulled many different directions and it is more difficult to really grasp and get to know a character versus, say, Jamie in Kaiju Preservation Society.

Still, a strong read that I think could work well in either a John Scalzi major authors course or perhaps a course examining a range of fiction from soft to hard scifi.

I also have to give props to my fellow Ohioan John Scalzi for bothering to recognize my alumnus, Wapakoneta, home of the Neil Armstrong Air and Space Museum and very little else.

Thank you to Tor Books and NetGalley for access to this digital ARC for an honest review.

DNF @ 45%

This story is so incredibly stupid. I mean, I knew the concept was silly, but the execution somehow makes this concept even dumber. Probably my last Scalzi.

Seriously fun story. Scalzi has a great imagination and it’s always fine to read his stories. This one is a bit crazy. It is about the moon, turning into cheese and what happens around the world because of this occurrence and the people that it influences definitely unique and always well written check this one out.

Unfortunately not my favourite Scalzi novel. The premise sounded intriguing but I didn’t care for the short story style. The short stories would have been better if they all interconnected. I felt no connection to any character and didn’t care what happened with anyone. I did enjoy Scalzi’s trademark humour in the book. I’ll continue to pick up other Scalzi books in the future as it’s too bad this one didn’t resonate with me.

This was my first John Scalzi, and it will likely not be my last! I had selected this item for our book subscription box series at my library, and it was a delight to read and select materials to go along with it. Funny, pertinent, hitting close to home sometimes, and absurd, When the Moon Hits Your Eye is a great title for librarians to recommend to folks who are looking for something different, even if they are not science fiction fans.

I wasnt able to read this book before the publishing date but now that I have read it I gave it 4 stars.

You can always count on John Scalzi to mix humor with heart in just the right way. Very few of today’s writers manage to both make us laugh and also speak to the state of the world like he does. When The Moon Hits Your Eye is no exception.

The premise is simple: the moon has turned to cheese. The book spends one lunar cycle, 28 days, with 28 different people living through the aftermath — from shocking discovery to confused scientists to the (loosey goosey) ramifications re: physics. Scalzi manages to bring so much life to these characters while never taking things seriously but also asking big, non-preachy questions really making you think and reflect.

I can see why, according to the author’s note, this book forms an informal trilogy in Scalzi’s mind with The Kaiju Preservation Society and Starter Villain. They are all standalones, but if you had fun with those, I think you’ll like this one too.

I’m just such a big fan of his, and I think everyone deserves the emotional bubble bath you get from reading his books!

Eh, not bad. Not as good as Scalzi's other stuff though. It's not the ridiculous subject of the moon suddenly turning to cheese. But I feel it does suffer from not having a main character. It's written more like World War Z where every chapter is a vignette from a different person. In this case it's the 28 days of the lunar cycle after the moon turns to cheese and expands greatly due to the new matter it's made of and all the problems that would cause, both scientifically and societally.

This is the best kind of fun! It's smart, quick and human. Each chapter is told though another voice, leading to a caleidoscope of experiences about...a cheese Moon! In true Scalzi fashion, this book hits all the right notes. A million starts (and a Moon or two!)

Published by Tor Books on March 25, 2025

John Scalzi usually displays his sense of humor in his science fiction novels. He’s churned out a bunch of science fiction comedies, the most successful being Redshirts. The stories tend to be amusing and Scalzi typically uses comedy to make a serious point. Even when he writes more serious novels (like Old Man’s War), he adds generous doses of humor. And he always remembers that the word “science” is in “science fiction” for a reason. Well, nearly always.

When the Moon Hits Your Eye is another sf comedy. It has sufficient merit to earn a recommendation, but it’s also disappointing. I had the impression that Scalzi wrote himself into a corner as he milked laughs from his premise and couldn’t come up with a credible way to ground the story in science.

The premise is ridiculous. One day, the moon turns into cheese — or at least into an organic matter that has the characteristics of cheese. Not only does the moon transform, but so do space rocks displayed in museums and kept in NASA’s vaults.

Scalzi brings a fair amount of science to the project, explaining that the cheese moon needs to be physically larger than the old moon to retain the same amount of mass. Mess around with the moon’s mass and tides get thrown out of whack. But a larger-than-moon-size cheese must compress as it orbits the Earth, so Scalzi imagines the cheese moon erupting as it squirts water from its innards. This is all very sciency, as a reader would expect from Scalzi, but it dances around the question of how the moon changed into a sphere of cheese.

Scalzi explores how the moon’s transformation is greeted by politicians, the media, scientists, wealthy business leaders, members of the clergy, the movie industry, and others. In fact, each chapter tends to focus on new characters who are caught up in the moon crisis. A cheese-related sex scandal involving a congressman and a retired sex worker might be the strangest response.

A chunk of the cheese moon breaks off during an eruption and is projected to smack into the Earth in about two years, causing an extinction event. Some people decide it’s time to start executing their bucket list. Scalzi imagines that bankers will use AI to keep their banks running after all the tellers decide they don’t want to be working during their final days of existence.

The funniest bit involves a company that designed a moon lander for NASA. The company’s CEO is jealous of, and in competition with, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk. He makes an unlikely plan to take the lander on an unsanctioned mission to visit the cheese moon.

But back to the science. I wondered how Scalzi was going to pull this off, given the lack of any credible explanation for the moon’s sudden transformation into a cheesy mass. While at least one of his books flirts with Intelligent Design as a rational explanation of life on Earth, Scalzi is a scientist at heart. He nevertheless includes a preacher in the plot and gives the preacher a chance to encourage his parishioners to cling to their faith in times of trouble.

I won’t spoil the ending, but I will say that it disappointed me by failing to provide a definitive resolution of the mystery. Scalzi presents (but does not endorse) a theory, popularized on conspiracy websites, but the theory doesn’t explain how the moon rocks on Earth transformed. The silly premise and the absence of a legitimate (even if farfetched) explanation to support it undermines the novel as a work of science fiction, so maybe the book is best seen as a comedy fantasy sprinkled with bits of science. As a funny look at how people might respond to end times that are still a couple years distant, the story generates enough chuckles to make it a good beach read.

RECOMMENDED

This was really really fun in a way I haven't experienced since listening to Project Hail Mary. This is a must read.

A classic absurd, hilarious one from John Scalzi. I was chuckling on every page! Thank you for the advance read!

This was an absolute hoot! Felt more like unconnected short stories than one cohesive novel, though obviously what happens to the moon affects everyone on earth. But getting to know a new character at the last fourth of the book felt a bit jarring to my experience of reading. But that’s worth it for this wild romp!

Thank you to Tor and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book!

Wow. I'm such a huge Scalzi fan and even then there are times where I read the synopsis and think REAAAALLLY? But then I read the book and am blown away. A moon-is-cheese book shouldn't work, but I think he can make any idea sing.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Publishing for providing me with an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review!!

Everything was fine. Life was moving at a normal pace when suddenly the moon was no longer made of normal moon elements. The moon was now made of cheese!! In this multi-pov story we follow many individuals from many different parts of the world all experiencing this crazy phenomenon. From scientists trying to find the answers, to billionaires attempting to land on the moon, we get to see all the insanity up close and personal over a lunar cycle. What would you do if the moon was suddenly cheese?

This book was a lot of fun. If you’ve seen movies like “Don’t Look Up” and “Seeking a Friend for the End of the World” and found them enjoyable, this may be up your alley. This reminded me a lot of Good Omens. It has very similar vibes for sure. If you want to read something “with your brain off” this would be for you! The plot is literally in the synopsis and it is really only that deep. The moon turned to cheese and everyone goes crazy in one way or another. It was seriously such a good time. 4/5 stars!