About Nole Moody

Nole Moody writes warm, funny fantasy for grown-ups who never quite stopped believing the world was stranger than it lets on.

Best known for the Mr. Gorzug series — an orc war-chief who becomes a much-loved English schoolteacher — Nole Moody specialises in monsters who turn out to be the most reasonable people in the room, and in the quiet magic still hiding in ordinary Britain.

The writing sits comfortably in the tradition of Terry Pratchett and Richard Osman: institutional satire that’s affectionate rather than cruel, comedy that never undercuts its quieter, kinder moments, and outsiders who somehow see us more clearly than we see ourselves. Beyond Gorzug there are goblins, familiars, space janitors and a seaside full of magically employed seagulls, all turning on the same gentle question: what if the monsters were the sensible ones?

One of those has landed. Corey Naylor – Space Janitor is a comic science-fiction novel with no dragons, no portals and nothing to do with Weird Britain. It’s out now, and so is Hold My Mop, the second half that finishes the job. One story, two books, no waiting.

There’s also one you can read this evening for nothing. The Garden Centre Will Remain Open is free in full on ArcReaders: a Yorkshire garden centre, an extradimensional refugee crisis, warning tape, and the practical limits of café hospitality. It’s the funniest thing here and, quietly, the most personal. It’s about a marriage under Alzheimer’s as much as it’s about the hole beside Aquatic Plants, and it’s free because I’d rather it reached anyone who needs it than earned anything.

What you can expect

• Comedy with the warmth turned up. Jokes that don’t punch down, and feelings that sneak up on you between them.
• Stand-alone stories. Every Mr. Gorzug book resolves; no cliffhanger hostage situations. The two Corey Naylor books are the one exception, and deliberately so: they’re a single story told in two halves, and the second one finishes it.
• A world that connects. Most of it shares one leaky, slightly-too-strange Britain. Here’s how it fits together.

Questions people actually ask

Is “Nole Moody” your real name?

It’s a pen name, and a fairly closely guarded one. Rest assured the green skin and the axe belong to the character, not the author.

Do I have to read the Mr. Gorzug books in order?

Each one is a complete, self-contained comedy. But read them in order and you’ll get the love story, the found family, and the slow-burn argument about where “home” really is, all of which land harder when you’ve watched them build.

Are these books suitable for younger readers?

They’re written for grown-ups, but they’re warm rather than crude. No gratuitous nastiness. Plenty of teen readers get on with them very happily.

Will there be more?

Yes. More Gorzug and more of the wider Weird Britain. Out already, in a universe of its own, is the Corey Naylor comic sci-fi duology: Space Janitor and its concluding half, Hold My Mop. There is also one you can read for nothing right now: The Garden Centre Will Remain Open, set in a Yorkshire garden centre with an extradimensional opening beside Aquatic Plants, free in full on ArcReaders. The newsletter is the surest way to hear about each one.

On writing

Where do your ideas come from?

They come from a variety of places, often from the most normal things and occasionally the weirdest ones.

I’ve been running D&D campaigns since I was twelve years old and creating computer games for most of my life, so I’ve had plenty of opportunity to exercise my creative muscles. Combine that with being Autistic and naturally tending to view life through a slightly different lens from most people, and I rarely find myself short of ideas.

How do you approach writing?

I’m a software engineer and game designer by profession, and I approach writing stories in much the same way as I approach developing software.

I begin by writing a synopsis of the concept, then deliberately leave it alone for a while. That gives me time to reflect on whether the idea is actually a good one before committing myself to several months of work.

Assuming I decide to pursue it, I break the story down into its major arcs. This lets me work out the overall flow and the main heartbeats of the story, and usually helps me discover who the important characters are going to be along the way.

The next major step is to write a couple of test chapters so I can get a feel for the characters and for the story itself. If I can’t produce an introductory chapter that feels compelling and interesting, I’m probably going to struggle to write an entire book, no matter how exciting the original concept seemed.

Once I’ve passed that point, I’ve reached the stage of no return. I break the major arcs down into individual chapters, then break those chapters down into the scenes within them.

After that I write a complete draft, which is often fairly crude, and post it on a serialisation site to gather feedback.

Finally, I rewrite everything a minimum of forty-seven times before it is allowed anywhere near Amazon.

All 34 questions → — including the ones about Mr. Gorzug and Corey Naylor specifically.

You can find everything Nole Moody has published on the Amazon author page, or get in touch.