author
Lyman D. Hinckley
A little-known pulp-era science fiction writer, remembered today for a single eerie tale of explorers confronting the ruins of an alien city. His surviving work has the tense, wonder-filled mood that made mid-century magazine SF so memorable.
1 Audiobook
Dust Unto Dust
by Lyman D. Hinckley
About the author
Very little biographical information about Lyman D. Hinckley is easy to confirm from reliable online sources. What can be confirmed is that he wrote "Dust Unto Dust," a science-fiction story published in the Summer 1955 issue of Planet Stories.
That story has had an afterlife beyond the pulp magazines. It is listed by Project Gutenberg, which notes that the text was prepared from the 1955 magazine appearance and that researchers did not find evidence of a U.S. copyright renewal for that publication.
Because so little solid background information is available, Hinckley remains one of those intriguingly obscure authors whose reputation rests almost entirely on a single surviving story. For readers of vintage science fiction, that rarity is part of the appeal: his work offers a direct glimpse of the adventurous, atmospheric style that flourished in the final years of the pulp era.