I like my SciFi kicking butt. Preferrably a woman kicking someone else's butt. So I like my women strong, opinionated, fiesty, and I like the writing interesting and engaging. I've found that these authors help me keep both criteria in check. Maybe you'll like them too.
Rachel Caine. Rachel Caine has a line of SciFi books about people who control the weather. They are called Weather Wardens. Her heroine is Joanne Baldwin. A Weather Warden on the run from doing a very baad thing. In "Illwind", you meet Joanne running from her fellow Wardens in order to try and clear her name of a crime she feels guilty about, but wasn't completely responsible for on her own. If you've ever wanted to control the weather, and you like Genies (Djinn), you may like this series, you see...the Weather Wardens don't just control the weather alone. They have Djinn, magical beings who help them harness their powers. And sometimes the Djinn are good...and sometimes the Djinn are bad. Very bad.
Rachel also writes a young adult series about Vampires (The Morganville Vampires) and has a spin-off series from her Weather Warden novels about Djinn (Outcast series), "Undone".
Kim Harrison. Kim has a series that's a supernatural one. Rachel Morgan is a bounty hunter that has trouble following the rules. Teamed up with a Pixy partner named Jenks, she gets into some trouble and quits the bounty hunter association she's with and is forced to join a private detective firm with her roomate and living Vampire friend, Ivy. If you're interested in checking the series out, look up "Dead Witch Walking", as it's the first in the series. Kim Harrison also has a YA book out, unrelated to the scifi series.
http://www.kimharrison.net/index.html
Kelly Armstrong. Kelly has quite a few books out. Her main series is "Women of the Otherworld", first book "Bitten." That's where you probably want to start. She has a spin off of "Men of the Otherworld" and such now as well as a few YA novels. "Bitten" is about Elena Michaels, who is a werewolf. She left her pack to be with humans, to get away from her pack. A mostly male dominated pack, she's been estranged with them ever since, including a former werewolf lover with whom she'd been instructed to be mated with. This book reflects on the inner struggle of a female werewolf trying to be on her own, but having a struggle between her natural insticts and her instincts to be free and undominated. Kelley also writes a series of Witch/Wizard tales as well, as her theme "Otherworld" suggests, it's not all just about werewolves.
http://www.kelleyarmstrong.com/
If you're into a little more SciFi than blending SciFi into our Real World as if it was our every day life-- you might be interested in an author named Faith Hunter.
Faith Hunter has 2 series. She has a Rogue Mage series and a shape shifter series called "Jane Yellowrock".
Her Rogue Mage series revolves around a woman named Thorn St. Croix who is a stone mage creating jewelry and living with a human community in secret, in a world that has come out the other side from a war and is a bit worse for wear. She's not a completely trained mage as she desires to keep her identity a secret. When her ex-husband goes missing she needs to find him and save him. The first book in her series is called "Bloodring", and the coverart is what drew me in to begin with. Very neat looking cover art.
Her second series is about Jane Yellowrock. Jane is not ordinary. She walked naked out of a forrest when she was a young girl with no memory how she survived on her own before being found. She has grown up to be a vampire hunting bounty hunter with an attitude that makes crossing her, not a good idea. She has an ability that she hides from everyone in which she can shape shift into an enormous cat, which lets her track her prey and uncover her bounty. The first book in her series is called "Skinwalker".
http://www.faithhunter.net/wp/
If you don't mind Orcs, this series might interest you. Morgan Howell writes a series of books called "Queen of the Orcs." When Dar, a human girl, is sold into slavery for the King's Army her life changes. The Army employs Orcs to help them win their wars in an alliance bred in an uneasy yet workable arrangement. Getting poor treatment from many of the humans in the Army, she begins an unlikely friendship/bond with Kovok-mah, one of the Orcs in the Army. The Orcs believe women have a lot of power and they worship a Mother figure in their community. As Dar begins to learn the Orc's language and understand their ways, she begins to seek protection from the Orc Army from the Human Army who has designs to break her into being an obidient slave. The first book in this series is called "Queen of the Orcs: King's Property".
*Note*: I strongly recommend L.K. Hamilton's earlier works. The first in the series is called "Guilty Pleasures" - don't take the name to mean this is a book of porn. The title refers to the name of a Vampire night club. The first 5-6 books in this series with Anita Blake are amazing. Anita Blake is the ultimate kick-butt woman who struggles with all things that go bump in the night. Now, if you have a strong stomach for sexual encounters, gratitiously done, the rest of her series may be to your liking as well.
I have managed to read all the books up until "Flirt" and I've pretty much decided that the Anita Blake I knew in the first of the books is gone, and I find that personally, I am not enjoying the series anymore and will stop reading them. Sometimes authors take things in a direction that they feel is appropriate for moving a story a long, but I feel personally, the direction things are going in, I have not enjoyed for some time. I am not a prude, however the stories are not what I loved at the beginning of the series and I don't like seeing the character I liked so much at the beginning fade out the way I feel she has.
Regardless, I do highly recommend the first 5-6 books in the series and you can decide when you wish to end reading. Please don't base your opinion on my opinion in that regard. :)
Other notable women leadership SciFi books that may be worth checking out:
Amazon Ink by Lori Devoti
Amazon Queen by Lori Devoti
Blue Diablo: A Corine Solomon Novel by Ann Aguirre
Hell Fire: A Corine Solomon Novel by Ann Aguirre
Wicked Game by: Jeri Smith-Ready
Bad to the Bone by: Jeri Smith-Ready
Bring on the Night by: Jeri Smith-Ready
Moon Called by Patricia Briggs
Happy Reading!
-Madalliam
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