Douglas Hill facts for kids

Douglas Arthur Hill (April 6, 1935 – June 21, 2007) was a Canadian science fiction author, editor and reviewer. He was born in Brandon, Manitoba, the son of a railroad engineer, and was raised in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. An avid science fiction reader from an early age, he studied English at the University of Saskatchewan (where he earned an Honours B.A. in 1957) and at the University of Toronto. He married fellow writer and U. of S. alumna Gail Robinson in 1958; they moved to Britain in 1959, where he worked as a freelance writer and editor for Aldus Books.

Hill and his wife had one child, a son. They were divorced in 1978. He lived in Wood Green, London, and died in London after being struck by a bus at a zebra crossing. His death occurred one day after he completed his last trilogy, the Demon Stalkers.

Writing science-fiction/fantasy for children

His most well-known series for younger children appears to have been The Last Legionary quintet. 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. The series contained the tropes of 'well-intentioned' Science perverted by ego and over-confidence into evil, and the 'good' science being used as the servant not master of humanity. The series also had the trope that elderly people are not irrelevant and worthless, but the smartest, wisest people around and the ones who really know what is going on.

Both The Huntsman and Colsec trilogies continued the tropes and themes of youth alienation caused by being disenfranchised, not lumping all aliens [foreigners] together, mismanagement of natural resources by the industrial military complex, and how disparate individuals can work together and find common ground for the greater good. Hill also explored these ideas in writing fantasy as well as science-fiction series, first in Poisoner and then Demon Stalkers.

His books were popular in schools as their straightforward action and sci-fi or sword-and-sorcery themes appealed to impatient or inattentive readers, particularly boys, who were increasingly difficult to engage in 'reading for pleasure and leisure' and above all they were relatively short-length books without a great deal of background waffle. 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.'

Another advantage to sustain the increased reading interest of boys was that Hill produced his novels fairly quickly—he had five books published between 1980 and 1982, which meant the engaged interest of young readers was kept as there was another title ready when they finished a previous one.