Book 1
Mr Gorzug – Substitute Teacher
He came through a portal to conquer a world. He stayed to mark its homework.
Dry, warm, gently impossible comedy
A nine-foot orc fell through a portal and became England’s favourite supply teacher.
Comedy by Nole Moody about monsters and misfits who turn out to be the most reasonable people in the room. Usually it’s modern Britain with the old magic leaking back in. Sometimes it’s a starship.
New here? Start at the beginning
Mr Gorzug – Substitute Teacher
He came through a portal to conquer a world. He stayed to mark its homework.
A nine-foot orc war-chief falls through a portal into a Sussex school car park and becomes its finest, fiercest substitute teacher. A gloriously funny, unexpectedly moving story about belonging, paperwork, and learning what is worth fighting for.
The series so far
Available now
A complete, self-contained comedy each time. But read in order and you get a love story, a found family, and a quiet argument about where “home” really is.
Out now · a different universe entirely
Corey Naylor
Die Hard in Space, with an unskilled janitor.
Armed pirates seize a luxury diplomatic cruiser. Security has failed. What the pirates did not plan for is the one man holding keys to every corridor nobody important has ever bothered to understand, and he would like everyone to stop making mess.
No dragons, no portals, nothing to do with Weird Britain. One story told in two halves, and both halves are out, so nobody has to wait to find out how the shift ends.
Free to read, all of it
The Garden Centre Will Remain Open
Something is climbing out of the ground beside Aquatic Plants. The café is still doing teacakes. Free to read in full.
A Yorkshire garden centre, an extradimensional refugee crisis, and a manager with a clipboard, a roll of warning tape and twenty-two years of experience in not making a fuss. The whole story is free to read on ArcReaders.
What readers say
Praise for the stories
★★★★★
“It's heartwarming, funny and thought provoking. He may be an orc, but Mr Gorzug would have been very useful in my school.”
★★★★★
“Funny but heart-warming at the same time. Unusual premise for a book but it works exceptionally well.”
★★★★★
“The story is clever, funny, and heartwarming … a feel good story that had me smiling all the way through.”
★★★★★
“The Art of War meets the Department of Education.”
★★★★★
“Hilarious in the so very English way! … should be required reading for all teachers in training, and for everyone who enjoys laughing at the bureaucracy we inflict on ourselves.”
★★★★★
“With how accurate Mr Moody is regarding the inner bureaucracy and over documentation of the public school system, I could have sworn he spent time teaching. It is funny, dry, and thoroughly entertaining in a way truth often is.”
★★★★★
“This series has been amusing on every page, occasionally hysterical and always accurate.”
★★★★★
“It’s hard to describe why I love Moody’s voice so much. It feels like being in the right place, with the right people.”
★★★★★
“Very funny, very engaging, excellent understanding of human nature whether the people at issue are actually human or…not.”
More than one universe
Pick a world
The books don’t all share a map. One’s a stranger Britain with the old myths leaking back in; another’s a starship a very long way from anywhere. What they share is the voice.
5 books · Mr. Gorzug
Mr. Gorzug
He came through a portal to conquer a world. He stayed to mark its homework.
A nine-foot orc war-chief falls into a struggling Sussex comprehensive and, against all sensible advice, stays to teach. Five books of dry staffroom comedy, paperwork as siege warfare, and a found family assembling itself when nobody is looking.
2 books · Corey Naylor
Corey Naylor
Die Hard in Space, with an unskilled janitor.
A different universe entirely — no dragons, no portals — but the same dry everyman voice. Comic science fiction aboard a diplomatic cruiser that has just been boarded by pirates. One story told across two books, and both are out now, so the shift can be finished in an evening.
Free to read in full · on ArcReaders
Weird Britain
Modern Britain, leaning up against the old, strange country it came from.
Everywhere else the old strangeness still gets in — usually damp, frequently polite, and almost always obstructed by paperwork. Right now that means a Yorkshire garden centre with something in armour climbing out of the ground beside Aquatic Plants.