I have a confession to make: when I first heard of When the Moon Hits Your Eye I was *deeply* skeptical. I’ve been riding with John Scalzi since day one (to be transparent, I didn’t find out about the self published Agent to the Stars until after Old Man’s War) and I’ve truly enjoyed just about everything he’s had published. Scalzi’s science fiction is a lot of fun, I’ve really dug his move to standalone work with The Kaiju Preservation Society and Starter Villain and if I hated the cover for Starter Villain it’s probably not Scalzi’s fault (my wife liked the cover, so maybe I’m in the minority here).
Despite that, finding out that this book was about the moon turning into cheese still gave me a visceral reaction that could best be described as a cringe. The cover didn’t help.
Friends, I’m here to tell you that When the Moon Hits Your Eye is as delightful as you might hope it would be. It’s Scalzi, with everything that entails. Scalzi gives us the big concept and then treats it seriously (well, mostly). The moon has turned to cheese. Okay. What would that actually mean? Well, if the moon keeps its mass then it would be much larger. It’s brighter in the sky. It would be a bit of an existential concern on earth and there would be plenty of doubters and mockery and those trying to take advantage of the situation.
Would there be a moon mission? How would this impact the space program? What about the cheese mongers?
When the Moon Hits Your Eye has John Scalzi’s typical light touch and humor. Are there cheese jokes-a-plenty? There are. The obvious puns, of course, and ones that you need to be a bit more cheese invested to have thought of.
Does it work? Your mileage will vary, but as someone who really likes bad jokes (they’re all good jokes, Brent) and who typically gets on with Scalzi—When the Moon Hits Your Eye is a truly fun time with a ridiculous idea that I’m sort of surprised hasn’t been played with more often and more popularly.
There isn’t a true narrative arc to the novel in the sense of following one or two characters through their story. When the Moon Hits Your Eye follows a wide ranging cast of characters from astronauts to retired scientists to top level government officials to a rich asshole (aren’t they all) to competing cheese mongers to just regular people going about their lives and figuring what/how/or if they need to deal with the moon having been turned to cheese. We all still have to go to work even if the moon is cheese, after all.
The novel is a slice of life, if you will (I’m having a lot of restraint here, people). During a period of time when the moon first turned to cheese, this is how some people and the United States government reacted and responded. That's ultimately what we're working with here. Progressive snapshots that move forward in time and there is an overall arc to the world's and the reader's understanding of what happened and more or less what it means for their lives and the lives of those they love.
The novel's hook is the concept. If you're down for a not really plotty examination of what happens when the moon turns into cheese that's funny and occasionally emotionally touching—this is the book for you. If you've read Scalzi before and his stuff works for you, this is an absolute winner. If Scalzi isn't your thing and you've tried, I'm not sure this will convince you. From my perspective, it's a delight.
It’s a cheesy good time. It’s really grate and I truly brielieve that it couldn’t have been cheddar than this.
I’m not sorry.
It’s a cheesy good time. It’s really grate and I truly brielieve that it couldn’t have been cheddar than this.
I’m not sorry.
It's all gouda.
--
Joe Sherry - Senior Editor of Nerds of a Feather, Hugo and Ignyte Award Winner. Minnesotan.
