I like Anne McCaffery a lot (although she can get mildly porny at times). And even though he isn't quite science fiction, George R. R. Martin's game of thrones series is awesome and has some great characters. (My husband has convinced me to name a daughter after one of the main characters who straight up kicks ass.)

One of the first blogs I read was by SF writer Kameron Hurley, before she got her book deal. She has a book coming out either this fall or next, I'm so excited, and her fiction focuses a lot on gender, genderqueerness, and she also has a lot of POC characters. She posts some of her stories online at her blog, and various snippets of the books she is working on as well. Here's her blog address http://brutalwomen.blogspot.com/

Star Trek Voyager, pre-7 of 9. Captain Janeway was my hero growing up. When I graduated from Indiana University last year, they gave their honorary doctorate to Jeri Taylor, a woman who was a writer and executive producer for the Star Trek franchise, including Next Generation and Voyager.

Joss Whedon's Firefly!

X-Files!

I also like sci-fi anime like Cowboy Bebop and some of the mecha like Full Metal Panic! and Neon Genesis Evangelion.

I'm also really into the fantasy genre, too.

my boss loves Marge Piercy. I think she qualifies. Women on the Edge of Time? or something...

I think the works of Robert Heinlein made me more of a feminist than most anything else I've read - and not because they were sexist, but because they weren't.

I couldn't begin to list the other sci-fi I love, it contains multitudes.

Not a big fantasy fan though, outside Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel books. Hardcore sci fi all the way for me!

Oooh, second on the Marge Piercey recc. He she and it is very scifi, and very good.

Ismone - which character? Dani? I wish Martin would hurry up and get that next book written!

UhOhitzSaro - Yeah, Woman on the Edge of Time, it's pretty good. A very interesting idea of what soceity could become.

Firefly is amazing, too bad it got canceled. Also, DOCTOR WHO!!! ^_^ While the Doctor's mostly female companions tend to play second fiddle to him (although, everyone in that show does) they are strong independent women in their own right.
His Dark Materials yb Phillip Pullman is a grat trilogy also, AND it has lots of strong women. The Terrorists of Irustan (cant remember the author) is another great sci-fi book.

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA

In addition to just plain great writing, there's a TON about the show to recommend it to feminists. Gender neutrality in the military, a strong (and cunning) female president, a female hotshot macho fighter pilot, and the romance storylines treat (gasp!) men AND women like actual, fully-fleshed-out human beings who don't always have to fit stereotypes.

It's far from perfect, of course (there is an obligatory blonde bombshell -- but she at least gets to be substantively interesting too), but it's a billion percent better than 99.99999999999% of anything else out there. Seriously, you need to watch this show.

And I second ElleStar's recommendation of X-Files and Firefly.

Faeryn,

Arya. Although most of his women characters are pretty freakin' awesome. And they're not all stereotypically pretty! (Arya, Brienne, Ygritte, Olenna). I love how Jon initially describes Ygritte in a way that you think she's unattractive, but then he starts to see her as beautiful. He does tend to exoticise/otherise some of his characters of color, but I think he really tries not to, and a lot of his characters are exotic even if they are "white." Like Melisandre. And he creates a respectful but role-segregated gender culture for the Dothraki, but allows Dany to turn it completely on its head.

Yeah, my husband (who intro'd me to the books) is worried that this delay doesn't bode well for the quality of the book.

Nice to find another fan. :)

I like Sherri Tepper, particularly The Fresco, which is SF but not particularly hard SF, and Gibbons Decline and Fall, which isn't really SF, but good anyway. While I like Anne McCaffrey, I've been re reading the Pegasus books, and it's occurred to me how bluntly heteronormative those particular books are. Characters are practically bred at knife point (not really, but it feels that way sometimes) so that FT&T will have more Primes, and the only gay characters (IIRC) are lesser Talents and supporting characters. Somewhat annoying...

For TV, I second Firefly, and also Stargate:Atlantis.

Over my vacation I took several interesting books with me to read during slow days and I found some Gems:

David Weber's Honor Harrington series appears to be a delight, the title character is a Female starship captain in a Post-Feminist star-faring society who kicks ass and takes names throughout the first book

But in the second book she is one the heads of a diplomatic mission to a extremely misogynistic society. I'm less than 1/4 through it but it appears to be taking the subject quite well.

For Heinlein I would recommend Friday.
I'm sure parts of it will be positively jarring to a modern feminist (mostly cause Heinlein was a dirty old man) but its his most noteworthy female protagonist and and interesting take on bigotry.

Catherine Asaro's Skolian Empire series are great, they're full of kick ass women from all sorts of different (planetary) cultures.

Since some people are including fantasy, even though it's completely different from sci-fi, I figure I will as well.

Two of my favorite fantasy series are the Cheysuli series by Jennifer Roberson and the Kushiel's Dart series by Jaqueline Carey. They both have strong female characters and are just great novels overall.

I love 'Heroes', even though there are some points, such as not as many female characters as male, etc., but there are some wonderful feminist things about it, like same-sex parents, the men are usually caring and emotional and often when they get into tight situations they're rescued by the women. Some people are annoyed by the whole cheerleader thing with Claire, but I love it. I think it shows you don't have to drop things which are stereotypically 'girly' to be strong and independent.

I also love the modern 'Doctor Who', although all the women seem to do when they get together is talk about the Doctor. But the companions - particularly Donna and Martha - are independent and strong women. Donna is my favourite, loving Catherine Tate as I do.

I'll second Battlestar Galactica!

Thanks for the ideas - and here are decidedly feminist sci fi stories I have written (the first of which was published):

The general theme I use is inversion (i.e., these are what-if-men-were treated-like-women stories)

Oomblaug Day
First published in the November 1996 issue of Parsec, Canada's first comprehensive science fiction magazine. Fifty years after those maggot-faces crawled out of their graves and invaded the earth, what's a regular "livey" to do? Francis goes to the office one day, dares to speak up to his zombie boss, and promptly gets fired. Is there life after the invasion? Get a taste of... Oomblaug Day

http://www.geocities.com/damunicom/oomblaug.html

Palace Athena
During Intergalactic Men's day, anything can happen.

http://www.geocities.com/damunicom/EnglishLanguageFiction/PalaceAthena1.htm

Mirror Game
On a clone farm deep in space, away from Earth morality, field clones dream of escape while house clones dream of the day they will receive their master's brain.

http://www.geocities.com/damunicom/EnglishLanguageFiction/MirrorGameWeb.htm

The new Battlestar Galactica, of course! And Firefly ... and, um, ... ummmm ... I'm not really into scifi as a genre in general; I just like good writing and characters.

Hello, people, what about CONNIE fucking WILLIS? She kicks ass, writes smart, funny, complicated novels, and creates some seriously feminist characters who are, at the same time, totally normal, relatable women.

Also, in the realms of fantasy, my dual adolescent obsessions both qualify as feminist: Robin McKinely (hell yeah Blue Sword) and Tamora Pierce. Awesome, awesome, awesome.

Last but not least, how about Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next books? They are brilliant, outrageously funny, and completely feminist. Thursday is such a fucking role model, I can't even stand it. I want to be just like her.

Mrs. Friday Next,

I saw your screenname first and wondered if it was based on the Thursday Next series (I've only read The Eyre Affair so far, but will eventually continue).

And this is just a random movie, but Galaxy Quest had a great part for Sigourney Weaver where she's able to broaden her traditional female sci-fi role.