Starting with Galactic Warlord the quartet (the fifth book was a prequel anthology) told the story of Keill Randor, last survivor of a murdered world, seeking revenge for the genocide, aided by a secretive group of advisers known as The Overseers and a winged, telepathic alien named Glr.
Whilst still at school and having become a volunteer 'pupil librarian', one writer and tutor was tasked with encouraging her teenage male peers to borrow more books from the school library and take up reading as a recreational activity and recommending books that would facilitate this from potential new stock; she found through peer reviews, questionnaires and a mini-poll that, 'alongside the contemporary, competitive sports-based stories of authors such as Michael Hardcastle and the humorous stories of such as Dick King-Smith, the other of the 'big three' for boys was Douglas Hill.
They liked the fast pace, the paring away of extraneous words and the compact length of the books, as well as that although each novel was a complete story, it existed within a 'universe' that enabled them to not have to learn a whole set of new characters each time.'
In the early 1990s he decided to develop a fantasy trilogy for adult readers; published in 1994 The Lightless Dome has the main protagonist of Jared 'Red' Cordell, who finds himself transported from contemporary 1990s Earth to a planet where sorcery and Mediaeval style knights and kingdoms exist – he finds that he is apparently descended from or possibly the genetic Doppelganger of a legendary warrior, Red Corodel, who mysteriously disappeared centuries before and who is viewed as the only hope of thwarting a power-crazed sorcerer intent on achieving global tyranny through Apotheosis – becoming a god.
Again the series examines the concept of an individual's ideals of personal integrity and community responsibility and at what point does altruism become destructive rather than constructive, and also the issues of spin and media manipulation as initially, he enjoys being in his own 'Conan the Barbarian' movie and plays on the perks of being mistaken for Red Corodel returned to save the day.