First contact stories have never been as intoxicating and fun as in Emily Jane’s novel of the sudden arrival—and equally sudden departure—of spaceships above Earth. 

In On Earth as it Is on Television—a rollicking paean to what it means to be alive in the twenty-first century—the fleeting presence of alien vessels, and the certainty that humans are not alone in the universe, sparks intense uncertainty as to our place within it.

The arrival of spaceships can bring up big questions.