John Scalzi is fond of writing an absurd situation and then examining how the people around it act and react. Whether it Kaiju monsters, talking cats, or rejuvenating senior citizens to create an army with life experience, he likes to write how he thinks we would react, with a bonus of how he would prefer us to react. So, in this outing, the Moon is suddenly transmogrified from rock to cheese.
Scalzi is completely uninterested in the reasons for or process of this change. What he wants to talk about is the dialogue between scientists, politicians, and the public about the situation. In these days of massive amounts of information, disinformation, and misinformation, I am not surprised that someone like Mr. Scalzi would want to write this. And he makes it as ridiculous and therefore fun for himself as possible. This is his commentary on the current relationship between North Americans and the field of Science, complete with reputable scientists, skeptics and conspiracists.
The character of Jody Bannon is a rather transparent version of Elon Musk (despite the character thumbing his nose at Elon and Jeff) . He is both incredibly smart and remarkably stupid. He is an obnoxious, empathy free, smart phone hurling, tantrum throwing man-child. But there are a lot of other characters to compare him to. Among them a pastor experiencing a crisis of faith. An academic whose popular science book is unexpectedly on point. A musician with a terminal illness. Two brothers who have been feuding over something that no longer matters. Three retired men who meet everyday at a local diner. And many more. It reminded me a bit of books like World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, where we get to look at a world issue from a plethora of viewpoints.
The big question is what would you do if you knew you had a limited time to live? What would you do? What would you quit doing? Who would you spend your remaining time with? [The little question: is Scalzi okay? No terminal conditions, I hope. He just sounds like he's put a lot of thought into the matter.] I have to say that I would try to speed up my reading! I might even eat a few more chips and drink all the coffee that I wanted. I'd likely quit doing housework too. Why not?
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