THE CENTURY'S BEST HORROR FICTION #41: A review of "The Words of Guru" by C.M. Kornbluth

Ladies and gentlemen, the creepy child trope has finally made its appearance with this tale. It’s not quite in the vein of THE BAD SEED, and it’s not even THE MIDWICH CUCKOOS. It’s a bit . . . different.



Peter is an odd kind of kid. You see, he actually remembers being born, as well as everything else throughout his infancy. By his second month on earth, he was speaking clearly, capable of having an adult conversation with his parents (he calls them by their first names, rather than Mom and Dad). Everyone assumes that he’s going to be a prodigy, and he’s certainly not letting them down.


But when he accidentally summons a magician by the name of Guru, things go in a much darker direction. Guru invites him to become a part of his coven (for the want of a better word), where the young boy, now twelve years old, learns a few magic words. The first is a word he uses to make food spoil.


Soon, he accumulates more and more magic words, and it seems that they all perform awful acts. He takes to this like a duck to water, and before long, he has learned how to kill people simply by uttering a word. He has no problem in using it.


As a result of his secret learning, his real studies have failed him. His teacher takes him aside to try to figure out what the problem is, and due to a misunderstanding between them, Peter uses the word to kill him.


SPOILER ALERT: There is one word that Guru refuses to teach Peter, yet as the boy grows older, he becomes an even more avid student. In the final scene of the story, he works Guru down until he finally gives up the last of his knowledge. “It is a word that will explode this planet like a stick of dynamite in a rotten apple.” But he doesn’t know if he’ll ever use it. That’s kind of the genius of the tale; by not knowing, he implies heavily that he’s thinking about it. Someone who has killed with the coldness of a psychopath is thinking about blowing up the world?! Damn! END OF SPOILERS.


There isn’t much to this one, but it seems to have a lot in common with “The White People.” If not for Kornbluth’s kinda-sorta lazy style, maybe this is what “The White People” should have been. Maybe. It probably wouldn’t be so beautiful, but it would have definitely been more entertaining.

[It's hard to say where this story first appeared.  It would seem, though it is not confirmed, that it appeared in a magazine called AVON FANTASY.  It can be read here.]