“Well, you’re not saved. None of us are saved! We’re all going to die! All of us! We’ve got two years, tops, and then you know what happens? Fucking cheese happens. No fire, no brimstone, no flights of angels, no goddamned rapture taking all of you gullible fools up into the sky while everyone else gets left behind. Just cheese.”

What if the moon was made of cheese? No seriously, think about it for a second. What would happen if the moon was suddenly made of cheese?

When the Moon Hits Your Eye is perhaps one of John Scalzi’s most bizarre books to date but it is just riotously fun. This is an apocalypse like no other, this is where the world ends in cheese.

When you look up at the moon and see its brighter, bigger and looking very different from the moon we have known our entire lives, well then scientists are going to be pretty busy, conspiracy theorists are going to have a field day and everyone else is going to either ignore it or attempt to profit from it. When they find out it’s because the moon has unexpectedly turned to cheese and is erupting, well then everyone is going to have a mighty bad time. As we go through an entire lunar cycle and end in an eclipse, humanity has to come to terms with their possible extinction. 

Why did this happen? What type of cheese is it? And more importantly can we eat it? This isn’t really a book that will readily give you straight answers. In fact Scalzi doesn’t give us much of a narrative arc, instead the reader is taken day by day through the lunar cycle with the perspective of each day being by a different character. From baffled scientists, dismayed astronauts, intrigued space nerds to an overwhelmed US President and his chief of staff, billionaires seeking fame and even authors and filmmakers using the opportunity, we are given a slice of life from these people dealing with the absurd reality of their new world. That’s not to say that there isn’t a plot at all, we do have characters seeking answers and we do have an impending end of the world scenario, but this isn’t a big race to save humanity. It develops more into a you’re screwed so how will you spend the time you have left? kind of story. Which was a hell of a lot of fun! 

“Man goes back to the moon for the first time in decades, a lunar lander gets within a few hundred meters of the actual surface, and then gets destroyed by flying cheese? How is this not a natural discussion topic for us?”

“You weren’t talking about that,” Lisa said. “You were talking about moon cheese enemas.”

There are a whole host of wonderful characters from all walks of life. I was worried at first that we would only read about each character once and never have them appear again but this wasn’t the case. Though each perspective changes, previous characters do appear again in the background. Of course I had my favourites, too many to discuss really but I’ll pick a few. There was Jody Bannon, a billionaire who owns a lunar lander and much to the disapproval of NASA, decides to take a trip up to the moon. Jody was so ridiculous but he really made me laugh. There’s a sweet chance meeting between Annette and Felix, both of whom are starting jobs in a cheese shop owned by two feuding brothers. It was so wholesome to see that cheese had brought these two together. Then there was Lessa Sarah, a young aspiring fantasy author who goes through the trials and tribulations of writing, especially now as the world is ending. This chapter unexpectedly made me cry. I’m used to Scalzi making me laugh, his trademark humour is what draws me to his books, but the emotion I felt here took me by surprise in such a heartwarming way.

There were parts of the ending that felt a touch of a let down for me personally and so whilst this isn’t my favourite read by Scalzi, overall it is an absolutely bonkers joy. Prepare for a cheese apocalypse folks!

“It’s a children’s nursery rhyme made real. It’s an impossible thing. There aren’t enough cows—”

“Or goats,” Dave interjected.

“—or any other sort of mammal to make a moon of cheese.

There probably haven’t ever been enough mammals to do it. And yet there it is, or at least, we’re being told that there is.”

ARC provided by Lucy at Pan McMillan and UK Tor in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for the copy! All quotes used are taken from an ARC and are subject to change upon publication.

When the Moon Hits Your Eye is out 27th March 2025 but you can pre-order your copy on Bookshop.org