There was a time that people said the moon looked like it was made of cheese. Why? Who knows, it never looked much like cheese to me, but in Scalzi's latest walk on the ridiculous side of science fiction the moon suddenly morphs into actual cheese. So do all of the moon rocks that have been collected on Earth. Politicians panic and demand answers of scientists, who are mostly stupefied, to calm the bewildered public. A few lives are more directly impacted by the change including the astronauts scheduled to make a lunar landing and the billionaire holding the government contract to build and test the new space shuttles that will take them there. It's a wild ride through the ridiculous, the impossible, and even the existential but what's the point?

I liked Red Shirts and Starter Villain but the premise here was so absurd I was afraid it would just be stupid. Fortunately, it's a serious glimpses into how people react to the situation and how it affects their lives and most of it is hilarious. Even the science was fun for me because I actually can picture some physicist explaining to the president why a cheese moon is so much larger and appears brighter than one of rock. I do not envy the physicists explaining to an ego driven "billionaire", who's actually on the verge of bankruptcy, why shuttles can't land on the moon made of cheese. While the science is there, this is ultimately a book about how people react to something so preposterous and there are plenty of people having an existential crisis by the end. Since this is a ridiculous journey that ends up going absolutely nowhere, existentialism is the right word for it and I suspect future students would much rather read this than Becket or Nietzsche like I did.

My verdict, it's fun but ultimately empty.  The ratings seem to agree since it barely made four stars for the story but received better reviews for Wil Wheaton's narration on Audible.