Three female authors who write sff that I really love and recommend are:
Janny Wurts - her Wars of Light and Shadow series are dark and complex stories and has some interesting male characters. Her collaborative novels with Raymond E. Feist, the Daughter of the Empire series has an incredible intelligent and strong heroine. Personally I think the novels show more of Wurts writing style than that of Feist.
Katherine Kerr - her Deverry cycle is epic and weaves in a lot of Celtic myth. Her female characters are strong, complex and have depth. What I really like is that although it's sometimes hard to distance yourself from stereotypes and fantasy tropes, especially when it comes to female characters, Kerr's series is the first one I encountered where there is some sort of equality in the way female characters are portrayed.
Tanith Lee - writes beautiful and dark stories and I wish more people would read her work.
And although he's not a woman, Steven Erikson's Malazan series has some incredibly strong female characters. In fact, he treats men and women almost equally (most are soldiers) which is very refreshing (and still all too rare) in the fantasy genre.
Authors I like
Janny Wurts - her Wars of Light and Shadow series are dark and complex stories and has some interesting male characters. Her collaborative novels with Raymond E. Feist, the Daughter of the Empire series has an incredible intelligent and strong heroine. Personally I think the novels show more of Wurts writing style than that of Feist.
Katherine Kerr - her Deverry cycle is epic and weaves in a lot of Celtic myth. Her female characters are strong, complex and have depth. What I really like is that although it's sometimes hard to distance yourself from stereotypes and fantasy tropes, especially when it comes to female characters, Kerr's series is the first one I encountered where there is some sort of equality in the way female characters are portrayed.
Tanith Lee - writes beautiful and dark stories and I wish more people would read her work.
And although he's not a woman, Steven Erikson's Malazan series has some incredibly strong female characters. In fact, he treats men and women almost equally (most are soldiers) which is very refreshing (and still all too rare) in the fantasy genre.