Paula Elaine Downing King (December 8, 1951 - December 17, 2017), who wrote the name as Paula E. Downing, Paula King, Paula Downing King and P. K. McAllister, was an American science fiction writer. She published eight SF novels between 1990 and 1996. Her Cloudships of Orion trilogy of space operas features an itinerant family of Gypsies who travel through the galaxy in their spaceship in search of resources to mine.[1]