I enjoyed the his other books, Starter Villain, so I knew this was going to be a good one. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for gifting me this arc.

If I used a more nuanced review scale, this would probably fall slightly below 4 stars - maybe 3.75? Alas, I do not, so 4 stars it is.

This novel really highlights Scalzi’s masterful writing ability. Each chapter is a short story featuring different characters dealing with the absurd experience of living in a world where the moon can spontaneously turn to cheese. Some chapters actually brought me to tears with the tangible emotion the author was able to create.

My main qualm with this book:
The RELENTLESS quippiness was almost too much. The story was “quip quip quip quip POIGNANT quip quip quip quip quip quip quip ASTUTE POLITICAL COMMENTARY quip quip quip…” for 300 pages. While there were some moments that were genuinely heartfelt, it just got to be a bit exhausting. I think I could have handled this pace better if it was a shorter novel or novella.

The moon has become what we always thought it was and now what?!? It’s the journey this book takes you on that is one of the reasons this author is one of my favorite authors to read and enjoy. I can’t wait to see what comes next.

Thank you NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

3.5 rounded up

Another fun book by John Scalzi. He is an author I will always recommend and read especially to people who are scared to try scifi books.

This book wasn't my favorite by him but I still had a good time. Since each chapter followed a different person, it was a bit hard to care about any of the characters but the fast pace and story helped keep me entertained.

I’ve been reading Scalzi for a long time and I’ve absolutely loved the more fun focused books he’s put out in the last few years. This one was probably the most unexpected one of them all. I had a lot of fun reading this one. The premise of the moon turning into cheese randomly might seem like a goofy writing prompt (even though moon being made out of cheese as a saying has been around for centuries). I really did love how Scalzi ran with it though. If you’re looking for realistic science in this sci-fi, you would be disappointed. Instead it’s a very good examination of society’s reactions to such an event mixed with all types of humor. It’s told through vignettes focusing on different people (some more with a recurring role than others) and at different points of time. Given the very absurd timeline we’re currently in, reading this was cathartic. Scalzi has been very cognizant of politics and how social media reacts to the world which made this crazy scenario feel very real.

Oh this was so goofy, but in a good way? And it could have been too goofy, too out there because well, the moon is cheese, friends. The moon is cheese. The thing is, the characters acknowledge how absolutely batshit this is, and how little sense it makes, and they are as befuddled as we the reader are. That makes it so much more palatable. Also, it was far more heartfelt than I'd expected, too. Good surprise, that.

It's told in a vignette style, popping into the lives of folks who are dealing with the moon-cheese aftermath. From random civilians to astronauts to world leaders to feuding cheese shop owning brothers, we encounter so many folks who are dealing with the fallout- because honestly who isn't dealing with the fallout of the world as they knew it potentially falling apart? And the ending was kind of perfect, tbh. I didn't see things working out the way they did, but man, I loved it. Pacing was a little slow at times, but it was very much worth the journey!

Bottom Line: Who knew that the cheese moon could bring so many cool stories, once you go ahead and suspend your disbelief.

WHEN THE MOON HITS YOUR EYE is a wacky, humorous yet introspective sci-fi novel that takes a very silly premise and turns it into a story about the complexity of humanity. One day, scientists around the world wake up to the shocking revelation that the moon has turned to cheese (or something that very closely resembles it). At first no one knows how to respond - it's a scientific impossibility, it must be some kind of miracle or apocalyptic curse, or else it's simply a lie.

As the days and months progress, the cheese moon becomes more than just an oddity, and it becomes clear that it may mean the end of the world. Suddenly life with a cheese moon isn't a laughing matter.

This book was hilarious at times, and deeply emotional at others. Scalzi manages to hit on some pretty tough ideas, especially when the end of life itself is looming in the not-too-distant future. It made for an interesting glimpse into the many different reactions that people might have to massive changes and potential endings. We saw many different characters (most repeating), in a sort of vignette style that showed perspectives from across the country, at all stages of life, and in many different professional settings. There's something for everyone here. The ending lost me a little bit, but the book as a whole was a delight.

I highly recommend this book for any fans of Scalzi's recent work, as well as for fans of PROJECT HAIL MARY.

This book is simultaneously exactly what you'd think it would be and not at all what you're expecting... while I acknowledged from the start that the premise was odd, I did not expect to actually feel emotions! Laughing? Sure. Crying? WTH?

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

You know the curse of the monkey paw? Highly recommend the subreddit for some fun reading. But anyways, you make a wish with the monkey paw and then while the wish is granted, it takes the wish VERY literally and will lead to unforeseen consequences.
So that's this book. Someone wished that the moon was made of cheese, and this book takes you through the lives of people across the US, who now have to live with a moon made of cheese. And it's a fun ride.
Scalzi's character dialogue is always so spot on. It flows so well that I usually feel as if I am there with the characters listening to them. I also really enjoyed how he wrote this. From the perspective of so many different characters, across different beliefs and ideas.
Each chapter was a joy to read. Especially the later ones, where they realize they might not have much time left on Earth. It was also a cool though experiment that I now ponder daily. What if I did know I only had a certain amount of time left?

I have enjoyed all three of Scalzi's recently published works and will forever be thinking of them and the absurd scenarios that take place.

I am not the biggest fan of the ending though unfortunately. It felt too abrupt, but I also know why he did it.

A bestselling New York Times novelist, John Scalzi specializes in taking weird conceits and putting them at the heart of SF novels: space armies staffed by the geriatric? Old Man’s War series, check; dinosaur preservation in an alt-Earth? The Kaiju Preservation Society, check; underworld business conspiracy run by cats? Starter Villain, check. But Scalzi has taken it a step further with his new novel, When The Moon Hits Your Eye.

https://bookandfilmglobe.com/uncategorized/john-scalzi-misses-his-moon-shot/

Giving this 2.5 stars.

When The Moon Hits Your Eyes by John Scalzi is a science fiction novel about the moon turning into cheese.

The plot sounds really interesting, enough so that it drew me in and led me to request this on Netgalley. That and I also really wanted to give John Scalzi another chance, thinking maybe I just didn’t enjoy Kaiju Preservation Society for the simple fact that it feels like a story that’s been overused. Nothing about it felt like something I hadn’t already seen in a show or movie, but a book about the moon turning to cheese?, how could I say no to that.

The book is split up into chapters, each representing a day in the lunar cycle. The story is told through multiple vignette POV’s, all from different characters in different parts of the United States, and their reactions to the moon randomly turning to cheese. There are so many characters in this story that none of them really make a lasting impact, except for the billionaire. It was very hard to get through all the dialogue while reading this one, I don’t mind humor but the cheese puns felt a bit excessive at times. The story examines how different individuals react to a sudden change and the potential end of the world.

In the end everyone’s fears are for naught, because things just kinda go back to normal. The ending was very ambiguous, and I wasn’t a huge fan of the format in which the book is written. With a plot about the moon turning to cheese, the ending just feels very anticlimactic to me. Thank you to Netgalley and Tor for an arc in return for a honest review.

I found this to be a fun, irreverent romp with just enough science to keep me satisfied given the fantastical plot. I was a little disappointed in the reference to a President that didn't read intelligence briefings (Mr. Scalzi could have simply made him an English major to make him less scientifically illiterate). I had a ton of fun just telling people about what I was reading - it gave people a lot of laughs on its own, and they may pick up the title when it's published.

There aren't many authors I would trust to execute on such an outlandish premise, but I appreciate the way Scalzi examined a wide swathe of human responses to the moon's transformation and also pulled off a ticking clock situation with a satisfactory resolution.

Our tale opens in Wapakoneta, Ohio - home of the Armstrong Air and Space Museum where the museum director just learned that something had happened to their moon rock. It had turned to cheese. And so had the Moon in the sky. Over the next thirty plus chapters John Scalzi explores human reactions to this unexplainable event and its implications for science, religion, and especially human relations. There are a few folks who show up in multiple chapters, but mainly this is a mosaic of different individuals. One of my favorite chapters involved a movie studio executive having to sit and listen to the movie pitches by screenwriters which are mainly all about the moon and cheese. I can picture John Scalizi giggling and laughing as he was writing various scenes (I know I did a bit of laughing myself while reading them), but John also writes well about human interactions and how stress and horrible situations can bring out the best or worst in people. In the end, this book is more about people being people than science fiction. A good read indeed!

Thanks Netgalley and Tor for the chance to read this title!

This one was super fun and I'm so glad I managed to read it early. Full of pithy humour, fantastic puns, a little bit of heart and an all around great narrative, this one is headed for the top of my favourite reads list

This book was delightful. I tend to go into books completely blind. So I was very surprised when the moon turned to cheese! It was such a unique premise and it was so cool to have so many POVs throughout the book to see how people were reacting. Parts of it had me laughing out loud and parts of it broke my heart a little bit. This was a ton of fun and now I need to go read all of Scalzi’s backlist.

Although some of its satire is a bit on-the-nose, John Scalzi's When the Moon Hits Your Eye is a funny, thoughtful, and well-crafted novel about an inexplicable event.

One day, without warning, the Moon turns into a giant ball of cheese. Every piece of Moon rock on Earth turns with it. Nobody knows why, and there is the general understanding that nobody would be able to find a satisfying answer if they went looking for one. What would you do in that situation, faced with such a grand cosmic joke? If you're the president, you might delay the Moon landing you had planned. If you're an author of pop science books, you might find yourself in hot demand on the talk show circuit. If you're a pastor, you might have a crisis of faith — the Bible never mentioned a cheese Moon, after all. But if you're like most people, you might just go about your life. What else can you do?

John Scalzi tackled similar high concepts in his previous two books, The Kaiju Preservation Society and Starter Villain. But while those books had a single main character with their own narrative, When the Moon Hits Your Eye is a series of vignettes starring a Magnolia-sized ensemble, including (but by no means limited to) an ex-professor of philosophy, a tech billionaire, several astronauts, a sex worker turned real estate agent, and the employees of two rival cheese shops in Madison, Wisconsin. The novel is at its most compelling in the first half as it hops from person to person, presenting a gestalt of American society as it tries to accommodate such a monumentally bizarre occurrence.

As a series of vignettes, it's hit or miss, and while there are more of the former than the latter, some of Scalzi's satire is shaky. Certain chapters take aim at the rich and powerful — whether they be a deeply stupid billionaire playboy who wants to eat the Moon cheese or a politician with an incredibly specific fetish — and justify themselves with satisfying conclusions. Other chapters, including those featuring a recurring character who might as well be named Schmelon Schmusk, belabor the point somewhat — but then again, maybe some points are worth belaboring.

After a significant development that kicks off the second half, the book becomes grimmer, though still not without humor; a disastrous episode of Saturday Night Live, performed in front of a shell-shocked studio audience, is a highlight. If it's a little disappointing to see a story with such a unique premise take the familiar shape of an end-is-nigh slouch towards oblivion, it redeems itself with a twist that's unexpected yet, in hindsight, inevitable — building up to a bitterly funny final chapter that tickles and stings in equal measure.

The shadow of the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, which just celebrated its fifth anniversary a few weeks ago, looms over When the Moon Hits Your Eye. It was an enormous, destabilizing event, one that everyone had to deal with in their own way, and that briefly brought us all together before we started to tear each other apart. The novel's thesis, which Scalzi illustrates gently but persuasively, is that, when the next cataclysm occurs, we can expect more of the same.

WHEN THE MOON HITS YOUR EYE by John Scalzi
Published: March 25,2025 by Tor Books
Page Count: 336



Whoa !. What a fun read. John Scalzi, highly acclaimed science fiction writer, best known for his “Old Man’s War” series, treats us to an enjoyable, sf-fantasy romp with intriguing insight into nature of humanity. Inexplicably the moon and all earth bound samples change into an organic matrix seemingly mirroring cheese. Suddenly a chunk breaks off the moon’s surface and is hurdling toward Earth, with its attendant apocalyptic consequences, threatening to destroy all life on our planet. This engenders a wide array of response and explanation from scientists and religious leaders around the world. Scientists cannot explain this phenomena using present day interpretations. Government officials scurry to maintain some state of calm in the world’s population. Religious leaders are no less successful in finding a divine answer. And, as usual, there are those who look for a way to profiteer. Even social media gets involved to elicit various conspiracy theories. This proves to be an amazing dark satiric look at how Americans would deal with such a large scale crisis. Scalzi explores the varied response in our society to this ludicrous premise.
Scalzi with his usual humor oozing through each page, weaves a fantastical tale of escalating tension as humanity deals with life on the brink of extinction. Through a large cast of characters and vignettes, the responses involvng politics, religion , science and every day people are explored. Scalzi’s usual targets are in focus, from corporate greed, to unscrupulous political machinations. What results is a thoughtful exploration of human nature in response to this sublimely inexplicable event.
Thanks to NetGalley and Tor Books for providing an Uncorrected Proof in exchange for an honest review. I can’t wait for Scalzi’s next though provoking treat.

Scalzi is firing on all cylinders in this book that dares to ask: what would humanity do in the wake of the moon turning instantly into cheese for no known or knowable reason? His mastery of creating characters you love and characters you love to hate shines as bright as the cheese moon as astronauts deal with their mission being canceled, rival cheese shop owning brothers have to handle the newly cheese-hating public, a tech billionaire sees an opportunity for immortality, the author of a recent unassuming book about the moon finds themselves thrust into the limelight, and I will let you have the pleasure of discovering the others for yourself. Everyone handles these events differently, and there is humor and pathos throughout. The old adage "you will laugh! You will cry!" definitely applies here, and I love that a book about the moon turning to cheese brought on such a cavalcade of emotions while I was reading. The last thing I will say is this book is about the journey, not the destination.

If you enjoyed The Kaiju Preservation Society and/or Starter Villain, you will absolutely love this book, and I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys a book about how people respond to a crisis and/or the inexplicable.

Many thanks to Tor Publishing Group and NetGalley for providing a pre-publication copy for review purposes. My thoughts and opinions about this book are my own.

An unforgettable, fascinatingly imaginative, novel of Science Fiction Anomaly! I can't cease pondering this story, and I'm impressively inspired to read more novels of bizarre Lunar anomalies, simply because I can't forget nor set aside considerations of this stunning story! John Scalzi is by far a uniquely creative yet also very wise individual. An amazing plot and premise riveted me and grew roots in my imagination. Under no circumstances bypass this novel. READ IT!