When the Moon Hits Your Eye

My first exposure to John Scalzi was Slow Time Between Stars. It impressed me so much I wanted to read more of his work.

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This book is completely different that that one. This one takes a while to get going, but when it does, it’s funny. The author takes a very simple, potentially stupid premise - the moon turns to cheese - and explores how different people around America respond to that.

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Then she asked, “Do you think your waitress was right? That this moon thing is a hoax?”

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“I know why she feels that way,” Clyde said. “We are confronted with a seemingly impossible proposition, that the moon has turned to cheese. And we live in an age where disinformation not only exists, but is actively used as a tool by pundits and political parties.”

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“Listen to him, he’s sound biting again,” Alton said to Dave.

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“Thank you for this,” Dave said to Connor. “If Clyde can’t pontificate, he gets mentally constipated.”

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This author does a really excellent job of painting very strong characters with just a few sentences. The dialog, sometimes between characters that only appear in passing, is really humorous. The punchy dialog is what sells this story.

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The novel makes commentary on the super wealthy, the way government works, the assumptions that are made about sex workers, and how deeply the public has been manipulated with misinformation that no one trusts information anymore.

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This last theme is highlighted by the two epilogues. They frame the entire story in a way that elevates it.

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