Gnelfs

by Sidney Williams

Saturday Morning Fun

Heaven was only four and a half, but she knew everything about the Gnelfs. She watched the little green men on TV, “read” her Gnelf books, and watched the Gnelf movies her mommy rented for the VCR. Sometimes Heaven even dreamed about the adorable little creatures. She just loved the Gnelfs.

Saturday Night Terror

Then the Gnelfs changed. Instead of being cute and lovable, they were ugly and mean. They hurt Heaven and made her cry. Then they started hurting other people, too…her Mommy. And her best friend.

Only Heaven could stop the evil little monsters. If only she knew how…

***

"My copy of Gnelfs is falling apart from re-reading." - Brian Keene, author of The Rising

Genres: Horror, Audiobook, Horror Thriller

287 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1991

About the author

Sidney Williams is the author of thrillers including Dark Hours, Midnight Eyes and Disciples of the Serpent. Early horror novels include Azarius, Blood Hunter, Gnelfs and When Darkness Falls. He also penned three young adult horror novels under the name Michael August. Sidney worked for years as a newspaper reporter with varied beats that included crime and entertainment news. He holds an MFA in creative writing from Goddard College and currently teaches creative writing.

Reviews

[Jason Harlow · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gabrielle's four and a half-year old daughter Heaven loves a Saturday morning cartoon called Gnelfs, but soon enough the characters in the show take on a life of their own. I love that this book is exactly what the cover illustrates - a young girl being stalked and harassed by creepy little creatures from the TV that have sharp teeth! This was a lot of fun and the characters were pretty enjoyable. I'm glad that books like this are easily accessible now because this is the kind of content I enjoy most, being campy, entertaining, and at times even creepy. The Gnelfs telling Heaven that her mom was a bitch was pretty wild and hilarious also. While this did kinda drag at times (mostly towards the end), this was a fun read and I finally get to end my streak of giving books 3 stars on here. Definitely recommended for fans of stuff like this.

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

     Five year old, Heaven begins having, what her mother, Gabrielle, believes are nightmares about her favorite cartoon characters, the Gnelfs. She wakes up screaming in the night, yelling that "they wanted to get her." But they're not just nightmares; the hugely-popular half-gnome, half-elf creatures are, in fact, more than simple animation on TV and in Heaven's books. They've somehow come to life - and Heaven is their target.
     Or so it seems.... but then why do they keep talking bad about her mommy and threatening to hurt her - telling her that she's a "bad girl, because mommy was bad?"
     One night, Gabrielle has a date over for dinner, and in the living room, Heaven is confronted by a group of Gnelfs; no adults can see them, but Gabrielle does see tears appear in Heaven's pants out of nowhere, as she screams for the invisible beings not to hurt her. More cuts and blood appear, and her clothes are all but shredded. Even though her date, Jake, and Gabrielle watch it happen with their own eyes, they can't understand it, but it is now finally apparent that Heaven's phobia of the Gnelfs has a very real cause - she was not simply suffering from nightmares.

"The child is under some form of spiritual attack I would not have been sent here if some disturbance in the spiritual fabric had not been detected."
"Somehow, or in some way, something has come into contact with the child. Something from the other side, the spirit world."
"There are many things out there. You people all seem to think they're benevolent. And honest. The reason for that escapes me. I cannot tell you what it might be. I need your help to try to find out."

    With the help of her new boyfriend, her best friend, a child psychologist and a mysterious priest, Gabrielle must try to fight what she cannot see to save her daughter's life. As time runs out, and the Gnelfs gain more and more power, Gabrielle and her friends must figure out who may want to harm her - the person behind these vicious attacks, who is targeting Heaven.
---------------------------
I very much enjoyed my first Sidney Williams! I have a few of his other horror books and I can't wait to give them a try now. It was definitely good, kept you interested and even though it was long, it left you wanting to know what happened next, so it goes quickly.

[Kelsi - Slime and Slashers · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars rounded up for Goodreads! I had such a ball reading this, and I can't even begin to explain why. It's zany, unique, and just an all-around good time!

Danube was definitely my favorite character! The audiobook was awesome too!

[spicykatzreads · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loooove where this story went!

[Amy Noelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 ⭐️ I love occult stories!!! This one has a super fun element with the Gnelfs. I enjoyed all the characters and it was interesting start to finish. I will definitely be picking up more from this author.

Watch my reading vlog here: https://youtu.be/bdofkE8AMU0

[Katrina · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite reads of April! What a fun time!

[Jon Von · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice creature feature in which a single mother and her six-year-old daughter find themselves threatened by invisible goblins. They find some help from a couple friends and a mysterious man who exists to combat evil on the human plane.
Starts off as one thing and morphs into something else with black magic and demons. But Gnelfs really shines when it works as a metaphor for female anxiety and parental fears under the looming presence of male violence. The mother meets a new guy and wants to trust him but is haunted by past experiences which manifest themselves as present dangers. Other characters deal with the lingering presence of patriarchal violence and find themselves tormented by it in different ways.
Pretty interesting, but is too long-winded and the action is pretty inconsistent; so it feels like most of the book is waiting for the next thing to happen. Some aspects of the plot take up a decent hunk of the amount but don't amount to a lot. It comes to satisfying conclusion that went bigger than I expected it to. Might have benefited from being shorter and having more psychological horror but as a B-movie, it has a fun premise and some interesting ideas.

[Wayne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Saturday morning cartoon characters are brought to life by an evil magician/sorcerer to harass a little girl. People around the girl start to die by little green hands. The only one that can stop them is a beyond age man who works for a group of cloistered nuns. This starts off a bit slow. It establishes the hell out of the mother and daughter that are the little buggers target of abuse. But take a breath and relax. It really takes off like a rocket. Like a great B-Movie.

[Snood · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a bizarre book and not one I expected to be remotely decent. I bought it at a book fair hoping for a cheesy horror story about killer cartoon characters, and that’s exactly what I got. Beyond that, it was actually well written and featured characters that seemed much more believable and likable than what you’d expect from a horror paperback.

I was disappointed by the final mini-chapter, which seemed pointless and slightly sullied what would have been a great ending at the end of the previous chapter.

[Addy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this book was great. The story kept me going and for a minute I thought it was gonna get cheesy with a back story about a crazy magician, but it didnt. I dont think the ending explained enough. I felt like I wanted to know more about Heaven's future, but the author left it open. I also wasnt clear about who Danube really was?? There were some biblical references, but I guess I didnt get it. Other than that, I really enjoyed this book.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was exceptionally wild and fun.

The ending went ALL in which I loved.

Wasn't a huge fan of some of the end villain reveals (feels like it should have been set up earlier) but asides from that it was a blast.

[Horror Sickness · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gabrielle's four and a half-year old daughter Heaven loves a Saturday morning cartoon called Gnelfs, but soon those creatures will come to live and visit Heaven. At first they seem innocent but they keep asking Heaven to do bad bad things.

Her mom thinks it is just nightmares but then Gabrielle sees them too and she knows she needs help.

This book was Gremlins meets The Exorcist with a touch of fantasy and it had many memorable characters. I am so glad this book was republished so that I could enjoy it.

This was a very interesting read that keeps changing from one horror subgenre to the next, making it the perfect book for horror fans.

You need to imagine this book as a great horror b movie that you can rewatch anytime for some fun. I did think the ending was very satisfying and definitely things got crazy in that third act. I wish we would have gotten more psychological horror here but all in all, a very satisfying read.

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one is told, in part, from the point of view of a child. A good, solid story.

[Midge · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wanted more!

I loved the general story, but I can't help but agree with other reviews. I wanted more of Denube's story. I wanted more of Heaven. While stand alone novels are great those two characters are so much more. If the author's goal was to leave the reader wanting more of the story, he succeeded.

[books-on-a-wire · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, that got nuts. I was expecting evil toys, this went into whole other realms with warlocks and more. Did I love it? Eh, no, but it was definitely memorable.

[Gabriel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gremlins, Munchies, Leprechaun, Puppet Master, Dolls, The Ghoulies, Childs Play were all very popular during the late 80s early 90s horror comedy boom. All are very fun, Gnelfs takes that tried and true formula and runs with it. In book form of course, this book is pretty wild. Doesn’t go in the direction I or many others would probably be expecting, interesting that it started out almost like a romantic comedy with a single mom and a mystery writer. Then very quickly the craziness ramps up, and to the point it goes in directions I was not expecting. The Gnelfs as characters are hilarious, obviously mostly inspired by the Smurfs but they have very perverted and course sense of language. The stuff they say is so out pocket that’s it’s definitely one of the main highlights, at times I kind of do wish it stayed the “little green evil elf’s” formula it started as. But at the same time the direction it does go in is fun, the final like 20 or so pages feel a tad rushed and also slightly dragged out all at once. Either we needed more of this new dynamic or less, I’m not sure what would have helped more. Really fun book regardless.

[Joshua Begley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This one continually surprised me, so I won't go too much into detail about the plot, because so much of the fun was just seeing where it would go. Williams does a fantastic job of making evil Smurfs legitimately frightening, and he crafts characters with such care and attention you can't help but hope they come through this madness in one piece, even though the book makes it seem like that's impossible.

There's also something comforting about, which may sound odd given that this is a horror novel, but given that this was written in the Eighties, it carries with it a certain attitude or feeling unique to horror at that time that added to my enjoyment of the story. It's like meeting a person for the first time who feels like a dear old friend.

Fast paced, scary, and surprising, Gnelfs was a great read.

[Angela Brown · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really hoped for the story to be good because the summary was so interesting. But the actual story itself...was just so outlandish and out of place that I had to read till the end. It was cringe worthy. Nothing made much sense and the "bad guy" was so random. Everything was so random. I thought the book was going to be like the Gremlins movies, but then it started to feel like an exorcist film, then it started to feel like The Smurfs with the "wizard". I lowkey visualized Simon as Gargamel from the Smurfs. But the book was just so bad. Also over sexualizing the women in the story made me roll my eyes. Also, why make a relationship between Gabrielle and Tanner just to abruptly kill it off like it was nothing? And who was Danube???? Like who was he really we never got the true answer from that.

[Tom Lucas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Total banger. This book originally came out in 1991, at the tail end of the Paperbacks From Hell era. It's been out of print for some time, but Crossroad Press brought it back last year. The high concept is Evil Smurfs go wild, but the story goes wayyyyyy beyond that. This book may be over 30 years old, but I'm not going to spoil it for you. If you are looking for a book that feels like a late Friday night horror movie, then check out Gnelfs.

[Drew Dietsch · Rating 3 out of 5]

What could be some simple and nasty gremcore fun ends up being a lot weirder but also less effective. Some good bits of violence and the climax is respectably nutty, but the pacing and prose make this a bit of a tough read to get through.

[Rally · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 This was crazy. It reminded me of so many nostaligic things from childhood and then made turned it in a scary way. I enjoyed the ride and wanted to know what was torturing this little girl and why.

[Leighanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can’t even explain why this book was so fun. Perfect ending. No notes.

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was just ok for me. A good idea but it felt way longer than it needed to be and towards the end I just lost interest.

[Venus · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fun read but I wanted more killer Gnelfs. 😂

My full thoughts: https://youtu.be/SGuPwuCCYqU

[Kevin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sadly not the play on 80s min-monster mayhem is hope for, and a plot device in the kids book symbology that doesn't feel as if it holds water at all.

[Shari · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Sierra Higgins · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fun time. Some spots were a little too slow, but overall I really enjoyed this. The concept was really fun!

[Amanda Reads · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great concept. I liked the first half of the book quite a bit better. I wanted more Gnelf high jinks. Maybe too many characters for me because several times I had to ask myself, “who is that?” Something felt off about Heaven other than being plagued by Gnelfs, she seemed too mature for a four year old. I still recommend it, it was a fun read, I think the second half took a direction that I wasn’t expecting and maybe not very interested in.

[Jayme · Rating 3 out of 5]

I started this book thinking it was a book I had read long ago, but it was not. I decided to finish it even though at times it would lag for me. The story follows a little girl and her recently divorced mother. The little girl, Heaven, is tormented by nightmares about little green men called Gnelfs that are the latest craze in cartoons, books, toys, etc. They start to become more than nightmares and begin terrorizing anyone who comes into contact with Heaven. We are also introduced to a fellow named Danube who, although its never outright written, is obviously the Wandering Jew. He starts helping to determine what has brought all this on and defeat the evil little creatures. A love interest is inserted into the story at the beginning, but the poor fellow gets killed off. The ending was very abrupt and didn't quite wrap up things for me. I would have liked to see Danube's conclusion....I suppose he is still wandering.Honestly, the book was well written. While reading, it was easy to picture the things I was reading. My only complaints, besides the obvious corniness of the subject matter, would be the ending and some of the characters' conversations which seemed a bit tedious to me.

[Nona Carrasco]

I Read this in High School. It was a favorite tale for a long time. Recently I went to Powell's here in Portland to find it and they didn't have it in stock, which I thought was odd, or that I had the title/author wrong. Evidently I didn't, they were just out of stock.
Definitely a must read again, as I'm curious if I'll like it now as I did then.