【 WHEN THE MOON HITS YOUR EYE 】

Genre: Science Fiction
Audience: Adult
Author: John Scalzi
Published: March 2025
Publisher: Tor
Pages: 326 (hardback)

This was as wonderful as it was bizarre.

It reads like a collection of short stories, capturing a variety of people’s reactions to the moon suddenly turning into ‘cheese’. I loved how creative this concept was, and how well Scalzi has managed to pull off the entire thing.

While the book isn’t the most satisfying read you’ll ever read (due to the short story nature, and therefore the lack of a solid sense of throughline that would have culminated in an epic conclusion), I do feel that this is a magnificent feat of writing. It has no business being as addictive, entertaining and laugh-out-loud funny as it was. And don’t get me wrong, it’s not lacking cohesion – in fact, the ways Scalzi does thread together the stories (almost like little cameos) was awesome.

I will say that I wouldn’t recommend this as your first Scalzi book. He has a unique sense of humour when approaching the plots of books akin to this (I’m thinking of The Kaiju Preservation Society and of Starter Villain). And either of those two predecessors is definitely a safer bet for a first-time Scalzi reader.

And for those who have read his other books, make sure you get your hands on this, because it’s a masterpiece. This whole book reminded me of creative writing prompts you would get at school, where the prompt could be very niche and whacky, and Scalzi has turned this marvellously odd idea into a really good story. So hats off to him.

Some of my favourite stories included the cheeseshop rivalry, the rogue space mission and quest to find a sample.

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Title: When the Moon Hits Your Eye
Author: John Scalzi
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From the New York Times bestselling author of Starter Villain comes an entirely serious take on a distinctly unserious subject: what would really happen if suddenly the moon were replaced by a giant wheel of cheese.

It’s a whole new moooooon.

One day soon, suddenly and without explanation, the moon as we know it is replaced with an orb of cheese with the exact same mass. Through the length of an entire lunar cycle, from new moon to a spectacular and possibly final solar eclipse, we follow multiple characters — schoolkids and scientists, billionaires and workers, preachers and politicians — as they confront the strange new world they live in, and the absurd, impossible moon that now hangs above all their lives.