DOWNING, Paula E.

   Working name of US attorney, municipal judge and writer Paula Elaine Downing King (1951-), who writes also as Paula King; she is married to T. Jackson KING. PED began publishing work of genre interest with "Loni's Promise" for Discoveries in 1989. Her first novel, Mad Roy's Light (1990) as Paula King, is an sf adventure featuring a human woman who must come to terms with her life within an interstellar trade guild while at the same time striving to comprehend the ALIEN Li Fawn, who mercilessly use biological engineering (GENETIC ENGINEERING) to modify other species for their own purposes. Her second, Rinn's Star (1990), plays something of a game of words with its title, as the telepathic protagonist Rinn, who lives on an interesting planet and travels between the stars, also sees her own personal star wax and wane erratically as she shoots from one culture to another, each having a different attitude towards her background and her gift. In Flare Star (1992) a colony planet is devastated when its sun flares; Fallway (1993) treated similar material; and A Whisper of Time (1994) set up a complex First Contact plot (COMMUNICATIONS) involving an alien orphan who, brought up on Earth, has fantasies about Mayan ruins, which resemble her own deepest memories of some other place.

   JC