PAUL, Barbara (Jeanne)

(1931-)

   US writer who began publishing sf with "Answer 'Affirmative' or 'Negative' "forASF in 1972, but who has become much better known in the 1980s for her detective novels, of which she has written at least 13; one of them, Liars and Tyrants and People who Turn Blue (1980), depends for its plot upon a psychic character. Earlier BP wrote several sf novels - An Exercise for Madmen (1978), Pillars of Salt (1979), Bibblings (1979) andUnder the Canopy (1980) - which feature women protagonists, through whom an unprogrammatic FEMINISM is pursued as they find themselves coping with sf-adventure situations. Pillars of Salt, for instance, is a TIME-TRAVEL tale which confronts its 21st-century protagonist with the challenge of becoming Queen Elizabeth I of England. A later novel, The Three-Minute Universe * (1988), is a Star Trek tie (STAR TREK).BP should not beconfused with the Barbara Paul who wrote The Curse of Halewood (1976; vt Devil's Fire, Love's Revenge 1976 US); this was the pseudonym of BarbaraKathleen Ovstedal (1925-).

   JC