When The Moon Hits Your Eye by John Scalzi (book review).

The museums noticed it first. Their samples were in full view. The change was obvious. Their moon rocks were no longer rocks. They were yellowish, slightly bigger than the rocks had been, with a strange oily sheen across their surface. Opening the sealed case took a minute, but even before the lid came off, the smell came to them. Their moon rocks had turned to cheese. All across the world, museums, labs, and researchers have reported the same thing. Every lunar sample on the planet Earth had turned to cheese at, as far as they could tell, the same time. It wasn’t long before everyone else noticed something was wrong. The Moon was too big, too bright. Too different.

NASA refuses to officially state that the Moon had turned to cheese. But whether cheese or organic compound, the moon has changed. We don’t know why. We don’t know how, and now we have to deal with it.

I have reviewed Scalzi books before. I have reviewed some of his more comedic novels, ‘Starter Villain’ and ‘The Kaiju Preservation Society’, as well as some of his space opera, the ‘Interdependency’ series. I generally like Scalzi’s work. This one is the exception.

The book is well-written and easy to read, just like Scalzi’s other books. What ‘When the Moon Hits Your Eye’ doesn’t have is a character to follow. The book is an overview of what various people do when the Moon turns to cheese. Something she can’t call cheese ruins the life’s work of an astronaut who has dedicated her entire life to lunar habitation research. A millionaire insists on being the first human to eat a piece of the Moon. A pop-science author finds sudden fame when his book on lunar mythology mentions cheese. Cheese shops battle increased sales but also fear and hatred; their product is accessible, while the Moon cheese is not.

A feckless billionaire put all his business on the line building a lunar lander that can no longer do its job. Religions must ask if this fromage is the work of the devil. All of these people and everyone on Earth have to work out some way to deal with the fact that the Moon, so regular and familiar, is now something so entirely different, and no one knows why. This overview is excellent in its way, but it means that there is no one character to get behind.

There is a lack of a cohesive story arc in this work. The character that gets the most page time is the feckless billionaire, and frankly, I’ve had enough of those lately.

The premise feels like something that came up at a drunken dinner party. Scalzi gives it a fantastic try, but, overall, it falls flat. If you love Scalzi’s other lighter works, then give it a go, but I would not buy it in hardcover. Honestly, I’d wait for a library copy.

LK Richardson

February 2025

(pub: TOR, 2025. 336 page hardback. Price: $26.99 (US). ISBN: 978-0-76538-909-1)

check out website: www.tor.com