Posted on May 18, 2024
Posted by John Scalzi
What is it called? When the Moon Hits Your Eye.
How long is it? About 92,000 words.
What’s it about? It’s about the moon turning to cheese.
No, really, what’s it about? I just told you.
Seriously? Yup.
How the hell do you keep getting away with this? Honestly, it’s a mystery to me too.
What kind of cheese? You’ll have to read the book to find out.
What else should we know about the novel? That it’s a differently-shaped novel than I usually make.
What does that mean? Each chapter is a day in a lunar cycle. Some chapters feature recurring characters, some don’t. Some go off entirely on their own.
So it’s like a short story collection? Not quite. Have you ever heard of the term “fix-up novel?”
Sure, it’s when a previously published series of short stories are collected together and interstitial material is added to provide connectivity and continuity. Like Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles. Wow, you nailed that definition perfectly. Yes. It’s like that.
So you wrote a fix-up novel? No.
But — I said it’s like that. These are all new stories, none of which have been published before. It’s not a fix-up, because there was nothing to fix up.
So what the hell is it? Maybe the term I would use for it is “episodic novel.” It’s a straight-up novel for marketing purposes, because it’s novel length and people understand the term, but structurally it’s rather a bit different than than my usual novel.
Why did you do it that way? Because that’s what the book needed, and because I could.
So, you’ve written a structurally divergent novel about… cheese? Well, a moon made of cheese, but, yes.
You were dropped as a child, weren’t you? I mean, probably.
But: why cheese? Who doesn’t like cheese?
When do we get to see it? It’ll be out March 25, 2025.
Anything else you want us to know? Just that I really like it. There are bits in there that I think are some of the best writing I’ve done, and I think you will be surprised by the places this book goes.
Okay, but: Cheese? Yes. Cheese.
(Update, 5/19: updated bits to better clarify what I’m thinking about the novel’s structure.)
— JS
