Oh yes, I can't imagine why I forgot about Octavia Butler. She was wonderful.

The book I'm reading right now and really, really loving is Luminarium by Alex Shakar, which is sort of science-fiction-ish. Sort of - present day, medical technology that's not very much of a stretch. The central characters are all male, so it really doesn't belong in this thread, but I don't see anything wrong with the way he presents the female characters and the relationships between the sexes, and as long as we're on the genre ...