Review: When the Moon Hits Your Eye by John Scalzi

RELEASE DATE

March 17, 2025

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Report of “Cheese Moon” Raises Eyebrows, Sparks Discussion

A forthcoming publication by noted author John Scalzi, titled When the Moon Hits Your Eye (March 25, 2025; Tor), has raised eyebrows and prompted laughs with its conjecture of our familiar, rocky moon’s sudden replacement with an enormous ball of cheese—sorry, with an “organic matrix” that most closely resembles cheese. In Scalzi’s telling, the fallout from this absurd and improbable change ranges from existential crises to a sudden boom in the Wisconsin cheese economy.

If you’ve got questions, you’re not the only one. Every character in Scalzi’s latest normal-people-in-baffling-situations novel is struggling to come to grips with the moon—previously a symbol of predictable, cyclical change—transforming, or being replaced, or perhaps being hidden by the government, without warning. If you’re hoping for answers, well—Scalzi’s characters don’t find them, and neither will you. He steers clear of getting too specific on some of the science, like avoiding mentioning exactly what kind of “cheese” (or cheese-like substance) the moon has turned into, while providing some explanation on why, for example, the tides don’t go haywire.

The book follows approximately thirty days—one lunar cycle—starting with the day of the moon’s transformation. Told from a variety of perspectives, it imagines how national leaders, private business sectors, astronauts, philosophers, astronomy students, and cheesemongers might react to the sudden upending of previously settled facts. In a particularly touching chapter, a small-town pastor is forced to confront his congregation’s fear and uncertainty, as well as his own; in another, two young college students find themselves experiencing a cheese-based meet-cute; in a third, three retired friends agree that if this signals the world ending, they’ll spend their remaining time together. In between, billionaire space industry entrepreneurs scheme to serve their own interests (and profits), banks consider the best way to profit, and the president attempts to project an image of calm (while negotiating with world leaders about whether they should point their “secret” space nukes at the imposter moon). Oh, and there’s a space-cheese sex scandal. Warning: Don’t snack on brie while you’re reading that chapter.

I wanted to love this book, both because I love a silly premise and because Starter Villain, my first Scalzi novel, was such a light, charming read. And there were many parts that I loved—and in between, there were many parts that struck too close to home, and jolted me out of my enjoyment. Entries from internet forums discussing scientists’ and governments’ possible roles in creating a hoax moon seem probable and, simultaneously, remind me of the current trend of mistrusting scientists, no matter what evidence they present. Bank boardrooms crunching the numbers to ensure they profit while setting their clients up for financial ruin reminds me that no matter what wonders or horrors the universe presents to us, capitalism is always about the bottom line.

Perhaps most jarring for me, Scalzi’s fictional billionaire runs a space technology company to which NASA has contracted out its moon lander construction, and serves only his own interests to make it to the moon before any other tech billionaire can. Chapters from his perspective frequently refer to a rivalry with Jeff [Bezos] and Elon [Musk]; meanwhile the NASA leaders and astronauts are tethered to his whims because the government has outsourced all its space technology to the private sector. Perhaps it’s just my sensitivity in our current political climate, where government-sponsored programs are being axed and entire industries left flailing, but I couldn’t bring myself to find it amusing, and even the aforementioned billionaire’s death by cheese-related misadventure didn’t quite land for me.

I think, perhaps, that this book simply arrived at the wrong time for me, when the whole world feels chaotic and unmoored. I hope that, in a year, I’ll be able to reread it without anxieties about unelected egomaniacs wreaking unchecked havoc on the government. I want to read it and not have the thought that Scalzi’s characters, facing their crisis, are far calmer and more reasonable than I think our society is right now—and we haven’t even got a cheese moon out of the deal. It is a good book, an original premise, and an amusing assortment of characters, and I can’t fault Scalzi for the book’s timing. I think that, much as I found with The Kaiju Preservation Society and its inclusion of COVID-19, this is a book I’ll enjoy more when it doesn’t feel quite so topical—and yes, I recognize the absurdity of calling a book about a moon made of cheese “topical.”

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CLASSIFY UNDER:

NORMAL PEOPLE, BIZARRE CRISIS

UNEXPLAINED PHENOMENA

WAIT, YOU BELIEVE IN THE MOON?

SEE ALSO:

The Kaiju Preservation Society and Starter Villain, John Scalzi

Going Postal, Terry Pratchett

PRESS CONTACT

scout tucker

scout tucker is a human-shaped collection of experiences currently living and writing in the midwest. they are re-learning every day how to be a creator of beautiful things.

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