"The Gnurrs Come from the Voodvork Out" is a 1950

science fantasy Science fantasy is a hybrid genre within speculative fiction that simultaneously draws upon or combines tropes and elements from both science fiction and fantasy. In a conventional science fiction story, the world is presented as being scientif ...

short story by

Reginald Bretnor Reginald Bretnor (born Alfred Reginald Kahn; July 30, 1911 – July 22, 1992) was an American science fiction author who flourished between the 1950s and 1980s. Most of his fiction was in short story form, and usually featured a whimsical story l ...

. It was first published in ''

The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction ''The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction'' (usually referred to as ''F&SF'') is a U.S. fantasy and science fiction magazine first published in 1949 by Mystery House, a subsidiary of Lawrence Spivak's Mercury Press. Editors Anthony Boucher a ...

''.

Synopsis

Papa Schimmelhorn is a semi-literate, self-taught

mad scientist The mad scientist (also mad doctor or mad professor) is a stock character of a scientist who is perceived as " mad, bad and dangerous to know" or "insane" owing to a combination of unusual or unsettling personality traits and the unabashedly amb ...

who invents a "gnurr-pfeife": a musical instrument which, when used to play the song "

The Church in the Wildwood "The Church in the Wildwood" is a song that was written by Dr. William S. Pitts in 1857 following a coach ride that stopped in Bradford, Iowa. It is a song about a church in a valley near the town, though the church was not actually built until ...

", summons clothing-eating monsters ("gnurrs") from the fourth dimension (such that they literally come out of the woodwork).

Reception

"The Gnurrs Come from the Voodvork Out" was a finalist for the 1951 Retro-Hugo Award for Best Short Story.1951 Retro-Hugo Awards
at TheHugoAwards.org; retrieved January 8, 2020 In ''

the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction ''The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction'' (SFE) is an English language reference work on science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and f ...

'',

John Clute John Frederick Clute (born 12 September 1940) is a Canadian-born author and critic specializing in science fiction and fantasy literature who has lived in both England and the United States since 1969. He has been described as "an integral part o ...

called it "hilarious" and Bretnor's "single most famous story", and stated that it "epitomized (...) the wit and literacy (of) ''The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction''".Bretnor, Reginald
, in ''

'', by

; version published August 31, 2018; retrieved January 8, 2020

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gnurrs Come from the Voodvork Out, The Works originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction