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Forgotten Authors: Charles W. Diffin

Forgotten Authors: Charles W. Diffin

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Astounding, February 1930, Cover by H.H. Wesso

Charles Willard Diffin was born on March 25, 1884 in Meadville, Pennsylvania to Charles A. Diffin and Julia (nee Benedict). He attended the University of Buffalo, where he graduated with a degree in analytical chemistry.

In 1903, Diffin married Pearl Burnside. Their daughter, Beatrice, was born in 1905. Son Charles followed in 1910 and Douglas in 1915. Charles predeceased his parents, dying in 1938 and Pearl died in 1951.

He began publishing science fiction in the February 1930 issue of Astounding with “Spawn of the Stars,” which was reprinted in Conklin’s The Best of Science Fiction in 1946. His “The Power and the Glory” in the July 1939 issue of Astounding explored the use of nuclear power, questioning whether it would be used to benefit or harm mankind.

From 1931 to 1932, he published four stories in his Harkness Bullard series. The series includes an initial trilogy beginning with “Dark Moon,” continuing with “Brood of the Dark Moon,” (serialized over four issues) and concluding with “The Finding of Haldgren,” all published in Astounding. He followed them with the serialized novel Two Thousand Miles Below, which was set in the same universe, although several years earlier.

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Dark Muse News: Sword & Sorcery Chain Story (#29-#32)

Dark Muse News: Sword & Sorcery Chain Story (#29-#32)

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In August 2025, we hailed the emergence of a second Chain Story project championed by Michael A. Stackpole. This is a Sword & Sorcery-focused, contagious set of connected (“chained”) stories.

Each is:

  • A standalone tale
  • Readable in any order
  • Free to read! (for at least three months from its posting date)
  • Interconnected via a theme involving a Crown

We round up groups every several weeks, but check the Chain Story website for the latest. Here we highlight the latest set of five, Episodes 29-32.

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Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone: What If? – The Unchronicled Cases

Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone: What If? – The Unchronicled Cases

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Two Nero Wolfe posts in one month? What flummery is this? Like most avid readers know, there’s just not enough time to read (and write about) all our interest areas.

I finished a Terry Pratchett novella (last week’s post), while continuing on with a Savage Sword of Conan Omnibus, and starting a first read of Tolkien’s Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (I’m never gonna be a poetry fan), AND grabbing an Isaac Bell detective book from the Clive Cussler shelves.

While still working on a couple of Nero Wolfe projects ‘in my other spare time.’ I started this one a year or two ago and finally dialed in to finish it. And man, it was fun. Using every original or alternate title, I came up with a different plot, title, or both. With a minimum of two per.

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Fresh Blood: Todd Grimson’s Stainless

Fresh Blood: Todd Grimson’s Stainless

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Vampires, of all the residents of the Kingdom of Fright, are uniquely vulnerable to the revisionist impulses of writers and filmmakers. People just don’t turn the same tricks with mummies or werewolves or ghosts that they do with the Nosferatu. I’m not sure why this should be so, but I do think it’s true.

This is a problem for me, though, because with monsters, I’m a traditionalist. (I want a ghoul just like the ghoul that buried dear old dad, as we used to say on the playground.) My stodginess is especially firm when it comes to the undead. When the sun goes down over the Carpathians, give me Bela Lugosi or Christopher Lee any day (or should I say, night); I want none of this Near Dark, Lost Boys or True Blood nonsense, and as for Twilight, please – Black Gate is a family-friendly site, and we’re not allowed to use words like that. This is why Salem’s Lot is my favorite Stephen King novel; its steadfast old-fashionedness warms the cockles of my heart, right where the stake would go through. (By the way, what the hell are cockles?)

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Prometheus Undone – Or, Cohen Meets the Gods (Terry Pratchett)

Prometheus Undone – Or, Cohen Meets the Gods (Terry Pratchett)

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I have written a half-dozen essays on the late, great, Terry Pratchett. As with Robert E. Howard, Rex Stout, and some other authors, I discovered him late in my reading life. I was a fan of Good Omens (I STILL find the streaming series unwatchable. David Tenant is nothing like Azrael to me), but I had never read a single Discworld novel.

Being a huge Douglas Adams fan, I gave Guards, Guards! a try, and I was hooked. I’ve since called him a ‘modern-day fantasy Voltaire.’ Do the kids still read Candide? We did in high school. I liked it.

The Last Hero is a 2001 illustrated novella, and is a rather unique work. This is sized between a coffee table book and an over-sized hardback, and it is LAVISHLY illustrated by Paul Kidby. There’s barely a page that doesn’t have some kind of background, or at least a block letter. And it’s literally filled with drawings of all sizes; Including full two-page spreads. If you like Kidby’s art, this will be one of your favorite Pratchetts. I’m not overestimating the sheer volume of terrific art in this. I cannot give enough praise and credit to this labor of love. I have the illustrated Eric, and this is a whole other level.

The story itself is a Pratchett-esque take on the Greek myth of Prometheus. Since we don’t teach the classics anymore, a quick recap: Prometheus was a Titan who sided with Zeus in the big rebellion against an overbearing father.

Later, seeing the suffering of man, he steals fire and brings it down from Mt. Olympus, giving mankind its greatest gift. That doesn’t fly well with the god crowd, so he’s captured and chained to a rock. Every day an eagle comes and eats his liver: Which then grows back for tomorrow’s snack. Man. Zeus could really be a vindictive SOB. Prometheus, Sisyphus: it’s not just punishment. It’s a repeatable action, for an eternity of torment. Eventually, Prometheus is freed by Hercules.

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Weird Times 7: Labour and the Economy

Weird Times 7: Labour and the Economy

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The J.P Morgan Bank at 23 Wall Street, New York, built in 1914.
This is the sixth post in a series reflecting on the world of the 1920s as a background to early issues of Weird Tales. Imagine that you’re an American in a big city in 1923, and you’re taking a walk to the newsstand to buy the first issue of a new pulp fiction magazine. What sort of things might you see? What do those things suggest about ways people think? Or about the stories they tell?

Perhaps you’ll see a bank. Bank architecture in the 1920s typically follows traditions going back to the 18th century, in terms of what the architecture is supposed to convey and how. Neo-classical buildings speak of power and security. You can leave your money in one of these temple-like structures, and feel safe. The bank will not disappear, it will not collapse, it will not fall before the bombs of a robber or a revolutionary. That matters; in an age before the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation the collapse of a bank can wipe out a depositor’s savings. And certainly this is an age that has recently seen many panics and controversies revolving around money and the economy; therefore often also revolving around politics, and around labour.

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Forgotten Authors: Howard Schoenfeld

Forgotten Authors: Howard Schoenfeld

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Howard Schoenfeld

Howard Schoenfeld was born on January 2, 1915 in Hot Springs, Arkansas. He attended the University of Syracuse. For Christmas in 1933, he visited Manhattan for the first time and a year later moved to Greenwich Village, where he got a job an editor for See magazine, a photo magazine and as deputy editor-in-chief for Uncensored. He also worked as a public relations officer for the Workers’ Defense League.

Schoenfeld refused to register for the draft in 1940, stating that he was a pacifist and that peacetime conscription was unlawful. He wound up spending 11 months in prison before being paroled to serve an additional seven months at a Quaker work camp for conscientious objectors. Schoenfeld wrote about his experiences in “The Danbury Story,” and went on to write a political column for The Conscientious Objector.

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Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone – 3 Good Reasons: Murder is No Joke

Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone – 3 Good Reasons: Murder is No Joke

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I haven’t written about Nero Wolfe in a year and-a-half? Flummery! Most NOT satisfactory. So…

Welcome to another installment of 3 Good Reasons. With a goal of eventually tackling every tale of the Corpus, I’ll give three reasons why the particular story at hand is the best Nero Wolfe of them all. Since I’m writing over seventy ‘Best Story’ essays, the point isn’t actually to pick one – just to point out some of what is good in every adventure featuring Wolfe and Archie. And I’ll toss in one reason it’s not the best story. Now – These essays will contain SPOILERS. You have been warned!

The Story

Today’s story is “Murder is No Joke” from And Four To Go. It’s the fourth and final story, and a bit of a ‘debutante at the wrong ball.’ Each of the first three has a holiday theme.

Flora Gallant is worried about the influence which the mysterious Bianca Voss has over her brother Alec; an internationally acclaimed fashion designer. A call to Bianca, from Wolfe’s office, goes awry when Voss is apparently murdered while on the other end of the line. Inspector Cramer finds it awfully convenient, and Wolfe sets out to identify the miscreant.

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Peter Pan by JM Barrie

Peter Pan by JM Barrie

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Hitherto he had thought it was some fiend fighting him, but darker suspicions assailed him now.
‘Pan, who and what art thou?’ he cried huskily.
‘I’m youth, I’m joy,’ Peter answered at a venture, ‘I’m a little bird that has broken out of the egg.’
This, of course, was nonsense; but it was proof to the unhappy Hook that Peter did not know in the least who or what he was, which is the very pinnacle of good form.
‘To ‘t again,’ he cried despairingly.

from CHAPTER XV ‘HOOK OR ME THIS TIME’

Leaving work yesterday, a friend expressed surprise when he saw my copy of JM Barrie’s 1911 novel, Peter Pan, in my hand. “You’re reading Peter Pan, the kids’ book?” he asked. To which I answered, “Yes. But it’s not a kids’ book, because it’s about a sociopathic twelve-year-old.” An exaggeration, perhaps, but not much of one.

I think most people, if they think of Peter Pan at all, it’s either because of the 1953 Disney movie or the long-running stage productions with first Sandy Duncan and later Cathy Rigby. For them he’s merely the boy who never grows up and spends his time fighting the Captain Hook and his crew of blackguards. Now, those are important elements of the book, but they barely hint at the depths contained between its covers. It is a much weirder, darker book than the Disney version.

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Into the Weird: Weird Tales, June 1923 (Volume 1, Number 4), Part 1

Into the Weird: Weird Tales, June 1923 (Volume 1, Number 4), Part 1

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Weird Tales, June 1923, front and back covers
The fourth issue of Weird Tales, dated June 1923, keeps the same format as the issue previous — starting with the large bedsheet size, about 9 inches by 12. The trade dress of the cover is the same, with the same logo. The design of the cover, with a splash of red in which one story is advertised in black writing, is the same. Unfortunately, the actual cover art, by regular Weird Tales artist William Heitman, isn’t very good.

There’s a lady, there’s an ape, and the latter seems to have surprised the former in her room. The majority of Weird Tales readers were likely able to place the image at once as a scene from Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Murders In the Rue Morgue,” which is reprinted this issue. The problem is that it’s not a particularly evocative image, and the poses of the characters seem odd at first glance and make less sense the more you look at them.

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