I like Sheri S. Tepper, her books have a decided feminist bent, and generally the women are at least as strong as the men. “The Gate to Women’s Country” is good, and “Grass”, and there are others I’ve enjoyed but I don’t remember the titles. The genre is sf/fantasy.
Roddy
In the fantasy field, you can rely on Mercedes Lackey to have strong female characters, both as protagonists and in other roles. They have plenty of flaws, but weakness isn’t among them.
Another fantasy option might be the Kencyrath novels by P.C. Hodgell. The protagonist, Jame, has issues, but she’s definitely a formidable young woman. (She might also be described as quirky, clever, terrifying, and possibly apocalyptic.) That’s not necessarily reflective of the status of women in general in the novels, though. Although some women of Jame’s race wield considerable influence and personal power, they’re not treated as equals by any stretch, and their activities are severely restricted (partly out of fear). Among the Kendar, a race closely associated with Jame’s, women are treated as equals in both ability and authority.
I just finished The Last Witchfinder , which has a very strong female character.
Set in the late 17th Century, it features a female protagonist who makes it her life’s mission to use science, mathematics, and reason to debunk witch hunters. She’s treated the intellectual equal (and sometimes superior) of every man she encounters.
The Firekeeper Saga by Jane Lindskold features a strong female protagonist ( and various other strong women ), in a fantasy world were women are generally regarded as equals. It’s also quite good.
Curses headed off at the pass.
However I can suggest Shards of Honor and Cordelia’s honor as “Barrayar!” combined into a single package. You can get the combined first 2 books of the Vorkosigan Series on Baen Webscription.net if you like ebooks, or in paper at a bookstore. Cordelia is one of my absolute favorite characters.
If you enjoy fantasy, you might like Marion Zimmer Bradley’s The Mists of Avalon.
Well, I don’t think it has ever been accused of being literature, but I really like the *Modesty Blaise * series by Peter O’Donnell. Modesty is a semi-reformed criminal and sometime spy; the original stories are set in the '60’s. Modesty is interesting, complex, daring, and ambitious, all right, as well as hyper-competent and sexy to boot. Her sidekick, Willie, regards it perfectly natural that Modesty is better than any man at almost anything.
She has appeared in a series of novels and a long series of adventures in newspaper comic strips, which are currently in print as collections. In my opinion, the first few novels are the best.
ATLAS freakin’ SHRUGGED
That’s what I came here to say. You have to get around a bit of Rand’s weird beliefs (for example, that the natural state of woman is hero worship–which really doesn’t hit you over the head very hard if you don’t know about it in advance), but Dagny Taggart is every bit as strong, smart, and equal as any of the men in the book, and she is respected and considered highly competent by all the other protagonists.
Fantasy is full of strong women writers and good female characters.
Anything by Sheri S. Tepper, Jo Clayton, Andre Norton, Jane Yolen, or Marion Zimmer Bradley is virtually guaranteed to have strong females in it. C.J. Cherryh is another good bet, but she writes more male leads than females.
If you like short stories, check out the Sword and Sorcery collections, edited by Bradley; the Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror volumes edited by Ellen Datlow and (until recently) Terri Windling, or their Snow White, Blood Red anthologies.
You’d like the main character in the Outlander series.
And despite this synopsis sounding a bit Harlequinny, this is a historical fiction of a ballsy woman. I don’t read romance novels, and I devoured this series.
Baker mentions Marion Alston in S M Stirling’s ISOT trilogy. If you like these try the Dies the Fire series - positively loaded with strong women. Probably the most interesting is Juniper MacKenzie, the Wiccan folk singer who leads her coven through the Change (when all technology fails) and founds a Clan. Plenty of others, some strong-good, some strong-bad - including another lesbian sword master/mistress :dubious:
Stephen King’s Rose Madder is full of strong women.
Thinking of historic novels I can think of a few where the principle character is a man but the supporting cast contain strong women who are the hero’s equal.
On the Roman front there is Helena in Lindsey Davis’s Falco books. just as tough and smart as Falco.
In 16th century Europe there is Dorothy Dunnett’s Lymond series. In several of the books Phillippa Somerville is the leading protagonist and there are plenty of other stong female characters - not surprising in a political intrigue at the time of Mary de Guise in Scotland, Catherine de Medicis in France, Queen Mary and the Princess Elizabeth in England!
Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. Gotta love a woman who strangles a wolf with her bare hands, then runs a herd of cattle through a jail to stage a rescue.
And isn’t afraid to get up in her True Love’s face and tell him off good and proper.
Wow! Ask and you shall receive - my library list has just grown a lot longer!
I’ve actually read a lot of Mercedes Lackey, Marion Zimmer Bradley, and Sheri S. Teper (her books are magical to me). Sci-fi and fantasy can definitely be a good genre for strong women, although it isn’t always. But other than that everything here is new to me, so thanks for all the suggestions and keep 'em coming :).
I love the Outlander books, but I don’t think they are what the OP is asking for. Claire is a wonderful character, but that series is set in an environment where women are decidedly second to men (18th century England, and later America) and everyone is nonplussed at how smart and capable Claire is.
I’ll third Honor Harrington, which is pretty much exactly what you were looking for when you mentioned Battlestar Galactica in book form. It’s epic space opera, loosely molded on the political situation in Europe leading up to the Napoleonic era. The society the main character comes from takes total gender equality as a given, and positions of power and influence there are almost perfectly divided between men and women. There’s an allied nation that’s strongly patriarchal (they’re basically Space Mormons) as a contrast, but Weber does a good job of presenting them even handedly, instead of making them a punching bag for feminist rhetoric.
If Science Fiction is Ok, check out John Varley’s Gaea Trilogy - “Titan, Wizard Demon”. Cirroco Jones, Captain of the Ringmaster has some adventures. (Most understated summary ever!)
Manyof Varley’s works are set in a future where sexual equality is so engrained in the culture that to have sexist views just doesn’t happen, so many of his characters are strong, free, intelegent egalitarian females.
Here is a link to his bibliography
http://www.varley.net/Pages/Bibliography.htm
He is thought of as the “new” Heinlein, by many.
Heinlein himself had many strong women in his stories.
Regards
FML
At the risk of a sidebar, one of my favorite nations in the Honor Harrington books is the one founded by the Mafia as a means of getting away from The Law so they could operate freely… and the planet with the strictest law enforcement in the known galaxy. If you violate the speed limit in your aircar, they remotely shut off the engine. 