Sure, I could have watched Encanto again (and I will), in which he provides the voice of Pico the Toucan. But I missed the casual humor and physical comedy he’d brought to previous (human) roles and I didn’t feel like allowing Serenity to break my heart all over again. What I’m trying to say is that, though I’m typically a fan of the dark and twisted, I was at a point in my life where I just needed to laugh. And I’d already finished all of Schitt’s Creek. Resident Alien is about an extraterrestrial whose spaceship crashes on earth while he’s on a mission to blow up all humans. Though he tries to lay low after the crash, assuming another man’s identity as he figures out next steps, he finds himself slowly absorbed into the day-to-day life of the small town in which he now resides. And, well, things get complicated. What I didn’t expect when I began watching the series was for its giddy hilarity to so instantly charm me. And once I got deeper into the show, I was surprised to find its exploration of humanity to be pretty goddamn touching. As I write this, I’ve finished marathoning the first season and am now watching the second season in real-time. But having to wait a week between episodes is…a lot? If you feel the same, you might appreciate this list I’ve put together of books and stories that are like Resident Alien. Because while you could just read the comic that inspired the show, I find that some of these other titles are a little bit better at scratching that RA itch. If you’re super into alien contact books and want more, I recommend checking out these first contact books, this second list of first contact stories, and this list of books about alien invasions, encounters, and more. As Karen Jow Fowler writes on Electric Literature in her introduction to the piece, “Why … are we so interested in finding intelligence in the stars and so deaf to the many species who manifest it here on earth?” It’s a question that’s sometimes hinted at, albeit beneath the surface, on Resident Alien. So, in Resident Alien, the protagonist (the alien) kills Dr. Harry Vanderspiegel and steps seamlessly into his life. As we get deeper into the series, we learn that the original good doctor may not have been as good as he first seemed. In Gilmer’s true crime book, a doctor joins a rural health clinic only to find that his predecessor shared his same last name. Not only that, but the doctor he’s replaced — a man once beloved by the community — left the practice after it was discovered that he had murdered his father. The parallels! I mean, the author uses the book to explore mental illness and the limitations of carceral justice. But! Maybe I’ve been watching too much Resident Alien…
