Writer, narrator, and producer of Mysterious Galaxies. Creates video and written essays on science fiction, fantasy, and horror — novels and short stories.
Mysterious Galaxies is written, narrated, and produced by Todd O'Rourke.
About — Mysterious Galaxies ↗
A video-essay channel covering science fiction, fantasy, and horror — reading one story or novel at a time, chronologically, with the analysis woven into the telling. Treats speculative fiction as philosophy.
Mysterious Galaxies reads science fiction, fantasy, and horror closely.
About — Mysterious Galaxies ↗
The channel's body of chronological deep-readings — one episode per work, each pairing the video with its full written script.
The channel's standalone written essays — rankings and book-versus-screen comparisons that sit alongside the episodes.
The premise that the best science fiction is a philosophical argument in narrative form — a story that is really a claim about minds, selves, contact, or what it means to be human.
the best science fiction is a philosophical argument wearing a plot.
About — Mysterious Galaxies ↗
The channel's method: read a work chronologically and think through its meaning as the story unfolds, so the summary and the argument are the same act.
The plot is the analysis; the two are never pulled apart.
About — Mysterious Galaxies ↗
A recurring lens: what science fiction reveals about encountering something truly outside human categories.
first contact with something genuinely alien to human categories
About — Mysterious Galaxies ↗
A recurring lens: the self placed under, copied by, or dissolved into its own technology.
There is a jewel in your skull ... learning to be you — so that one day, when the soft grey tissue around it finally fails, no one will notice the difference.
Learning to Be Me — Mysterious Galaxies ↗
A recurring lens: the world after people, and the cold arithmetic of extinction.
A story about an empty house that keeps making breakfast is an argument about what our works are worth once we are gone.
About — Mysterious Galaxies ↗
Short story, 1990.
There is a jewel in your skull ... learning to be you — so that one day, when the soft grey tissue around it finally fails, no one will notice the difference.
Learning to Be Me — Mysterious Galaxies ↗
Australian SF writer known for rigorous stories about identity and consciousness.
Short story, 1967.
American writer of dark, confrontational speculative fiction.
Short story, 1950.
American writer whose lyrical SF includes the post-nuclear vignette There Will Come Soft Rains.
Short story.
Short story.
American SF writer of ecological and post-human futures.
Short story, 1959.
American SF writer; author of the time-paradox story All You Zombies.
Short story, 2005.
Welsh hard-SF writer and former ESA scientist.
Scottish writer; his Culture novels imagine a post-scarcity, post-capitalist civilization run by benevolent superintelligent AI Minds. Published mainstream fiction as Iain Banks and science fiction as Iain M. Banks.
the books he loves were written by an unapologetic socialist, and the society they describe treats one man hoarding hundreds of billions of dollars as a symptom of a sick, primitive civilization.
Iain M. Banks' The Culture and Its Billionaire Fans — Mysterious Galaxies ↗
Iain M. Banks's series of novels and stories set in a post-scarcity interstellar civilization run by superintelligent AI Minds, with no money, private property, or class hierarchy.
a post-scarcity civilization with no money, no private property to speak of, no corporate overlords, and no class hierarchy, run by benevolent superintelligent AI, where work is voluntary and human flourishing is the only goal.
Iain M. Banks' The Culture and Its Billionaire Fans — Mysterious Galaxies ↗
Novel, 1988. A Culture novel.
His favorite Culture novel is The Player of Games, which is about an empire called Azad whose entire order, politics, status, and very morality rests on winning a single monstrously complex game.
Iain M. Banks' The Culture and Its Billionaire Fans — Mysterious Galaxies ↗
Novel, 1987. The first Culture novel.
Consider Phlebas for the full galaxy-spanning sweep.
Iain M. Banks' The Culture and Its Billionaire Fans — Mysterious Galaxies ↗
Novel, 2010. A Culture novel.
His name is Joiler Veppers, the richest man in his civilization, so rotted by greed that his signature business is renting server space for virtual Hells where the uploaded minds of the dead can be tortured for profit.
Iain M. Banks' The Culture and Its Billionaire Fans — Mysterious Galaxies ↗
American horror writer whose career the channel reads in publication order, starting with his 1974 debut Carrie.
It launched the most durable career in American popular fiction
Carrie: Stephen King's Debut and the Making of a Monster — Mysterious Galaxies ↗
Novel, 1974.
it put a bullied teenage girl at the center of a horror story and dared you to take her side.
Carrie: Stephen King's Debut and the Making of a Monster — Mysterious Galaxies ↗
Novel, 1975.
The pitch is simple: Dracula in small-town America.
'Salem's Lot: Stephen King's Dracula in Small-Town Maine — Mysterious Galaxies ↗
Novel, 1977.
The supernatural is real, but the deepest horror is domestic.
The Shining: The Monster the Overlook Reveals — Mysterious Galaxies ↗
Novel, 1977, published as Richard Bachman.
That book is Rage, and it's the only novel King has ever pulled.
Rage: The Novel Stephen King Took Out of Print — Mysterious Galaxies ↗
Short-story collection, 1978.
Night Shift, his first short-story collection, came out in 1978: twenty stories that swing from genuinely great to rough apprentice work.
Night Shift: Stephen King Learning Horror in Public — Mysterious Galaxies ↗
Novel, 1978.
Stephen King has called The Stand his great American novel, and for once, the hype is his own.
The Stand: Stephen King's Great American Apocalypse — Mysterious Galaxies ↗
Novel, 1979, published as Richard Bachman.
It's the first novel he ever finished and, for my money, one of the most disturbing things he ever wrote.
The Long Walk: Stephen King's Most Disturbing Novel — Mysterious Galaxies ↗
Novel, 1979.
It was King's first openly political novel, and it's less a horror story than a tragedy about the weight of knowing something before anyone will believe you.
The Dead Zone: Stephen King's First Political Novel and the Hitler Question — Mysterious Galaxies ↗
Novel, 1980.
Firestarter is a rebuttal to Carrie.
Firestarter: The Sequel to Carrie Stephen King Never Wrote — Mysterious Galaxies ↗
Novel, 1981, published as Richard Bachman.
Roadwork, published in 1981 but written years earlier, is the most misunderstood of them, and the reason is simple: it gets sold as a thriller when it's actually a tragedy.
Roadwork: Stephen King's Most Misunderstood Bachman Novel — Mysterious Galaxies ↗
American science fiction writer; author of the Korean space opera Ocean's Godori (2024) and its sequel Teo's Durumi. A former bookseller at Seattle's Elliott Bay Book Company.
Elaine U. Cho is the author of Ocean's Godori and Teo's Durumi. She is a former bookseller at Elliott Bay Book Company (Todd's favorite bookstore in Seattle).
Writer: Elaine U. Cho | Mysterious Galaxies ↗
Novel, 2024. Debut Korean space opera; first in a planned series.
Ocean's Godori is Elaine U. Cho's debut novel, a Korean space opera published in 2024.
Ocean's Godori: Elaine U. Cho's Korean Space Opera Is a Grief Story in Disguise — Mysterious Galaxies ↗
American author who writes deep-space horror as S.A. Barnes for Tor Nightfire, including Dead Silence, Ghost Station, and Cold Eternity, and young-adult fiction under her own name, Stacey Kade.
S.A. Barnes is the horror pen name of author Stacey Kade.
Writer: S.A. Barnes | Mysterious Galaxies ↗
Novel, 2022. Deep-space horror published by Tor Nightfire.
Dead Silence is S.A. Barnes' 2022 deep-space horror novel, and for about half its length it's the real thing: a haunted-ship story good enough to sit near the films that made this genre.
Dead Silence by S.A. Barnes: A Great Space Horror That Explains Away Its Own Ghosts — Mysterious Galaxies ↗
Website essay, 2026. Ranks all eight Stephen King books of the 1970s, worst to best.
So here's the whole decade ranked, worst to best: every novel and the one story collection King published between 1974 and 1979, including the two he hid behind the Richard Bachman name.
Every Stephen King Book of the 1970s, Ranked — Mysterious Galaxies ↗
Website essay, 2026. What Francis Lawrence's 2025 film adaptation changes from the novel.
Francis Lawrence's 2025 film of The Long Walk is the leanest, meanest Stephen King adaptation in years, and it gets there by making real changes to the book.
The Long Walk: Every Big Change the Movie Made to Stephen King's Book — Mysterious Galaxies ↗
Diaspora fantasy author with roots in Hong Kong and Shanghai, based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her adult fantasy debut The Night Ends with Fire opens The Dragon Spirit Duology; she also writes young-adult fiction.
K.X. Song is a diaspora fantasy author with roots in Hong Kong and Shanghai, based in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Writer: K.X. Song | Mysterious Galaxies ↗
Novel, 2024. Book one of The Dragon Spirit Duology.
The Night Ends with Fire is K.X. Song's debut, an adult fantasy that retells the legend of Mulan with the safety off.
The Night Ends with Fire by K.X. Song: A Mulan Retelling Whose Hero Never Grows — Mysterious Galaxies ↗
Pioneering American science fiction writer (1947-2006), the first Black woman to win wide recognition in the genre and a MacArthur Fellow, known for Kindred, the Earthseed (Parable) novels, and the Patternist and Xenogenesis series.
Octavia E. Butler (1947-2006) was a pioneering American science fiction writer, the first Black woman to win wide recognition in the genre and a MacArthur Fellow
Writer: Octavia E. Butler | Mysterious Galaxies ↗
Novel, 1993. Book one of the Earthseed (Parable) novels.
Octavia E. Butler published Parable of the Sower in 1993 and set it in a United States coming apart in the year 2024.
Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler: A Religion Built for the End of the World — Mysterious Galaxies ↗
American author of the comedic LitRPG series Dungeon Crawler Carl, which began as a self-published serial and was later picked up by Ace.
Matt Dinniman is an American author best known for the wildly popular Dungeon Crawler Carl series, a comedic LitRPG that began as a self-published serial and was later picked up by Ace.
Writer: Matt Dinniman | Mysterious Galaxies ↗
Comedic LitRPG series in which Earth is demolished for an intergalactic dungeon game show and the survivors crawl its floors on live broadcast.
an ordinary guy and his ex-girlfriend's show cat get dropped into a deadly video-game dungeon and have to punch, loot, and level their way down
Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman: The Funniest Book About the Attention Economy — Mysterious Galaxies ↗
Novel, 2020. Dungeon Crawler Carl book 1.
Dungeon Crawler Carl is the funniest book I've ever read about the attention economy, and I'm not sure Matt Dinniman meant it that way.
Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman: The Funniest Book About the Attention Economy — Mysterious Galaxies ↗
Novel, 2021. Dungeon Crawler Carl book 2.
If the first book was about an ordinary man surviving a deadly game show, this one is about him getting good at it.
Carl's Doomsday Scenario by Matt Dinniman: Carl Learns to Play the Audience — Mysterious Galaxies ↗
Novel, 2021. Dungeon Crawler Carl book 3.
The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook is the third Dungeon Crawler Carl book, and it's my least favorite of the first three.
The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook by Matt Dinniman: Dungeon Crawler Carl Tries to Grow Up — Mysterious Galaxies ↗
Novel, 2021. Dungeon Crawler Carl book 4.
The Gate of the Feral Gods is where that engine, the thing that made the series so addictive, started to tire me out.
The Gate of the Feral Gods by Matt Dinniman: When Dungeon Crawler Carl Becomes Too Much of a Good Thing — Mysterious Galaxies ↗
Novel, 2022. Dungeon Crawler Carl book 5.
The Butcher's Masquerade is the fifth Dungeon Crawler Carl book, and it's the one that won me back.
The Butcher's Masquerade by Matt Dinniman: The Dungeon Crawler Carl Book That Won Me Back — Mysterious Galaxies ↗
Novel, 2023. Dungeon Crawler Carl book 6.
The Eye of the Bedlam Bride is the sixth Dungeon Crawler Carl book, and it's my favorite since the original, which puts it second in the whole series for me.
The Eye of the Bedlam Bride by Matt Dinniman: Where Dungeon Crawler Carl Becomes a Rebellion — Mysterious Galaxies ↗
Novel, 2024. Dungeon Crawler Carl book 7.
it's the moment Dungeon Crawler Carl broke containment and went mainstream
This Inevitable Ruin by Matt Dinniman: Did Dungeon Crawler Carl Trade Its Soul for Scale? — Mysterious Galaxies ↗
British fantasy author and one of the defining writers of modern grimdark, best known for the First Law world.
Joe Abercrombie is a British fantasy author and one of the defining authors of modern grimdark fantasy.
Writer: Joe Abercrombie | Mysterious Galaxies ↗
Grimdark fantasy trilogy (2006-2008), the opening of the wider First Law world.
Book one asks whether people can change. Book two begins to answer. Book three finishes the answer and then reveals who was pulling the strings.
The First Law Trilogy by Joe Abercrombie: People Do Change, and It Doesn't Save Them — Mysterious Galaxies ↗
Novel, 2006. The First Law book 1.
Joe Abercrombie published The Blade Itself in 2006, and it opened a series I somehow let sit on my shelf for the better part of two decades.
The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie: The Grimdark Debut That Makes You Root for People You Should Despise — Mysterious Galaxies ↗
Novel, 2007. The First Law book 2.
The Blade Itself asked whether people can change. Before They Are Hanged is where he starts to answer that question.
Before They Are Hanged by Joe Abercrombie: The Rare Middle Book That's Somehow Even Better — Mysterious Galaxies ↗
Novel, 2008. The First Law book 3.
Last Argument of Kings finishes the answer by turning it around and showing you that the question was being manipulated the whole time.
Last Argument of Kings by Joe Abercrombie: The Finale That Reveals the Whole Trilogy Was a Con — Mysterious Galaxies ↗
Website essay, 2026. A hands-on review of the Lit Escalates special edition of the First Law trilogy, plus a fine press primer.
My box from Lit Escalates showed up this week, which means I've now got the special edition First Law trilogy on my desk and about a dozen opinions about it.
The Lit Escalates First Law Trilogy: What $200 Actually Buys You — Mysterious Galaxies ↗
Website essay, 2026. Why the channel does not rate books out of five, and the six questions that replace the number.
I don't give books star ratings. Not in the videos, not here on the site, and I get asked about it often enough that it's worth writing down properly.
Why Star Ratings Are Broken, and How I Judge Books Instead — Mysterious Galaxies ↗
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