DAVID GEMMELL was widely regarded as this country’s most accomplished exponent in the heroic fantasy genre. His 30-plus novels sold more than one million copies.

Born in 1948, he grew up in a tough West London neighbourhood where survival depended on being handy with his fists, the ability to run fast and possessing a tongue glib enough to talk his way out of trouble. Although he employed all three at various times, the latter became his most finely honed technique; and in later years his talent as a raconteur was evident in his many appearances at signings and literary events.

Expelled from school at 16 for gambling, Gemmell drifted through a number of casual jobs. These included labourer, lorry driver’s mate and nightclub bouncer, a profession well suited to his robust 6ft 4in (1.93m) frame.

His mother, recognising an embryonic talent in her son, arranged for him to be interviewed for a vacancy with a local newspaper. That he was one of 100 applicants, and almost certainly the least qualified, meant he was unlikely to be picked. However, his arrogance during the interview was mistaken for self-confidence and he was hired. He eventually rose to be editor-in-chief of five South Coast newspapers and became a stringer for several nationals.

Gemmell’s first attempt at a novel, in the late 1970s, failed even to find a publisher. “It was so bad it could curdle milk at 50 paces,” he admitted.

The circumstances surrounding the publication of his first novel were extraordinary. He developed an illness whose symptoms indicated a cancerous growth and the prognosis looked grim. Convinced he had little time left, Gemmell decided to tackle the novel he had long had at the back of his mind. He wrote The Siege of Dros Delnoch in two weeks and it too failed to find a publisher. In the event, the growth had been misdiagnosed; he did not have cancer and the book was forgotten.

A friend visiting him some years later chanced upon the manuscript, read it and pointed out the novel’s strengths and weaknesses. Enthusiasm rekindled, Gemmell made one last attempt at getting it right. Retitled Legend, it was published in 1984; it has never been out of print and is now considered a classic in the fantasy adventure field.

The novel’s protagonist, Druss the Axeman, bears an awesome martial reputation but is in his sixties and he has to struggle as much against his own declining powers as against his enemies. Druss is much more rounded and believable than the average fantasy hero, and there is an audacity in presenting an old man as the hero in this kind of story.

Gemmell based Druss on his strong, independently minded stepfather, Bill Woodford. Characterisation was acknowledged as one of Gemmell’s skills, and he attributed this to his habit of drawing from real life. “I grew up with men of violence,” he explained on one occasion. “I understand men of violence. It means that when I write action scenes and when I have violent characters, I have a very strong feel for it.”

Eventually his practice of basing characters on actual people got him into trouble. He used his journalist colleagues as the cast for his third novel, Waylander (1986) and lost his job over it. “The managing director regarded it as a poisonous attack on his integrity,” he recalled. This prompted Gemmell to turn to novel writing full-time, but he always credited the disciplines of journalism as laying the foundations for his pacey, concise prose style.

Legend introduced themes that remained pivotal to his work — the lone hero, often tortured by loss or doubt; the battle against advancing dotage; the pursuit of seemingly lost causes; complex villains, and the inclusion of elite, usually mystical, groups. A consistent thread in Gemmell’s fiction, and one which reflected his Christian beliefs, was the conviction that redemption was possible for even the most corrupt.

The success of Legend led to a string of bestselling fantasy novels, some standalone, many in multipart volumes, including the Drenai, Rigante, Sipstrassi and Hawk Queen series. His Macedon sequence, Lion of Macedon (1990) and Dark Prince (1991), set in the Greece of an alternate world, tells the story of military genius Parmenion and his protégé, the young Alexander.

Gemmell wrote one book under the pseudonym Ross Harding. Published in 1993, White Knight, Black Swan is a gritty crime thriller. It was his only novel not to achieve bestselling status. At the time of his death he was writing the third in a trilogy retelling the legend of the siege of Troy. The first volume, Lord of the Silver Bow, was published in 2005. The second, Shield of Thunder, is due to appear this September.

When critics labelled his novels macho, he always insisted that they were missing the point. “There is no gratuitous violence in my books,” he stated. “I tend to concentrate on courage, loyalty, love and redemption. I believe in these things. If there’s anything I’d like my books to achieve, it would be to increase the desire of people to do good.”

This sense that moral choices have to be made is at the heart of his work. It gives his stories direction and forms his characters. In knowing that Gemmell’s books are suffused with a basic decency, that his characters strive to act honourably and do the right thing no matter how the odds are stacked, one knows the essence of the man.

Gemmell died after heart bypass surgery. He is survived by his second wife, Stella, and their two children.

David Andrew Gemmell, novelist, was born on August 1, 1948. He died on July 28, 2006, aged 57.