author
Arthur G. Hill
Best known for the sharp, unsettling science-fiction story The Terrible Answer, this elusive writer left behind work that still feels brisk, readable, and surprisingly pointed.
1 Audiobook
The Terrible Answer
by Arthur G. Hill
About the author
Arthur G. Hill is a little-documented science-fiction author whose surviving reputation rests mainly on The Terrible Answer. Project Gutenberg, LibriVox, and bookseller records all identify the work with Hill, and LibriVox classifies him simply as a science-fiction author.
The Terrible Answer first appeared in If Worlds of Science Fiction in July 1952 and was later preserved through Project Gutenberg, which has helped keep Hill's work in circulation for modern readers. The story is a compact Mars tale, but its real force comes from its darker themes: greed, conquest, and the dangers of treating others as less than human.
Beyond that, reliable biographical details are scarce, so it is safest to think of Hill as one of the many mid-century pulp-era writers whose work outlasted the paper magazines that first carried it. Even with only a small public record, his fiction has remained available through reprints, audiobook readings, and digital archives.