Women in Sci-Fi and Fantasy/Game of Thrones

[channlluv]

I'd like to recommend Tamora Pierce's books, especially the Alanna the Lioness quartet and the Protector of the Small quartet. Both are about lady knights in the medieval world of Tortall. Another good series if you like medieval-set police procedurals is the Beka Cooper series - Terrier, Bloodhound, and the newest is Mastiff, which comes out in a couple of weeks.

Talk about girl power, these books have it.

Roxy

[Catrin]

....Another good series if you like medieval-set police procedurals is the Beka Cooper series - Terrier, Bloodhound, and the newest is Mastiff, which comes out in a couple of weeks.

Talk about girl power, these books have it.

Roxy

Ooooh, I am reading Terrier now, and it is fantastic, thanks for the recommendation!

[Irulan]

Ugh, I am still slogging my way through A Dance with Dragons. I really don't care about new characters, but I'm sticking it out so I can find out where is leaves off. This is excruciating though. I'm thinking this guy must have fired his editor.

[Catrin]

Just discovered a new fantasy author. R. Scott Baker. While I've not yet finished "The Darkness That Comes Before", I am finding his writing to be refreshingly different. Very few female characters, at least so far, but this isn't a carbon copy of any other fantasy world/stories I've ridden in the past. The protagonist is both sorcerer and spy, and it is a promising beginning.

Also, on the advice of women in this thread, I've read several books by Tamora Pierce and found them enjoyable. I probably won't read all of them, but have read both of the Trickster books (Trickster's Choice, and Trickster's Queen) along with Terrier, Bloodhound and Mastiff. All well worth reading. I especially enjoyed the latter three.

[OakLeaf]

Reviving this thread for a hat tip to a couple of authors I've just discovered.

Ann Leckie's first novel, Ancillary Justice, is one of the best hard SF novels I can remember reading, ever. I've been kind of buzzing through brain candy, and that one was like three books ago, but my mind keeps coming back to it. Some really interesting concepts of distributed intelligence.

Also, Nnedi Okorafor, best known as a YA writer (which, I've enjoyed her YA stuff too), but her first adult fantasy, Who Fears Death, completely blew me away. It's intense, violent, could trigger some people, but for heroic female characters, just wow.