When the Moon Hits Your Eye – John Scalzi

The writing is brilliant. Scalzi takes a ridiculous premise and makes it work. Each chapter presents a slice of alternative-life, with reasonable people behaving mostly-intelligently and mostly-well. And each chapter is a pleasure to read. I was somewhat-dissatisfied by the ending, but Scalzi wrote himself into something of a corner that didn’t leave much room for a satisfying ending. On a technical note, Scalzi structured the book in a way that made it easier to be brilliant: It is easier to craft thirty-odd semi-independent vignettes well if they don’t have to cohere into a novel with an integrated plot. But easier isn’t easy - and the writing is brilliant.