C. J. Cherryh

American female Speculative Fiction author, fairly prolific. Was a Classics teacher before working full-time as a writer, with a degree in Latin and a Masters in Classics. Unsurprisingly given the humanities background, her works tend more towards examining the social implications of things. Has written a fair amount of fantasy, but she's best known for her science fiction, having won two Hugos for novels and one for short story. Most of her science fiction tends to be of the "hard" variety, with Faster Than Light Travel being the only deviation from currently understood physics.

Has her own extensive website.

Universes/series:

Alliance Union, which contains many series, some only lightly connected:
- The Morgaine Cycle, essentially fantasy novels but with a tenuous tie-in to the Alliance-Union chronology
- The Chanur Novels, in which the viewpoint characters are alien lion-like creatures.
The Foreigner 'verse, dealing with the troubles of Bren Cameron, liaison between a stranded human populace and a world of aliens with deceptively humanoid appearance and very nonhuman psychology.
The Fortress series, High Fantasy centered on the friendship between Tristen, a reborn ancient king and Cefwyn, the current ruler of his lands.

Stand-alone works:

The Paladin -- Low Fantasy martial-arts story set in essentially medieval China, in which pig-girl Taizu turns up on exiled swordsmaster Saukendar's doorstep to learn the skills she needs for revenge.

Her works display examples of:

Amnesiac Dissonance - It's pretty clear that Tristen fell under Good Is Not Nice at best in his previous life.
Be Careful What You Wish For - In the Rusalka fantasy trilogy, a wizard's wishes will come true -- all of them. Somehow. Not always in a way that's good for the wizard. Wishing a stone to fly won't make it levitate -- it'll cause something to come along and fling that stone through the air. "Wish a stone to fly -- and then beware the whirlwind."
- Tristen has to watch this, because his wishes have a lot of power.
Blue and Orange Morality - The Atevi in the Foreigner series who don't have the concepts of love or friendship, but do have something called "man'chi". Bitter experience has show that humans and atevi shouldn't mix except through the one authorized translator-ambassador.
- Also almost all the alien races in the Chanur novels.
Boarding Party - The power-armoured marines of Rimrunners, and other armed groups boarding stations and taking control in the Alliance Union series.
Bond Creatures - the night horses in her Rider series.
Came Back Wrong - Tristen. Mauryl wanted a Badass, but got someone with the mind of a child. Even after he Took a Level In Badass, he's still a Friend to All Living Things Cloudcuckoolander trying to figure out How Do I Shot Web instead of a ruthless Magic Knight conquerer.
Crystal Dragon Jesus / Corrupt Church - The state religion in the Fortress series.
Eldritch Abomination - What Tristen was called back to fight. And probably Tristen himself is a Humanoid Abomination, although a very nice one.
Fantastic Racism
Friend to All Living Things - Tristen, especially regarding horses and birds. Killing his birds is used to get to him more than once.
Grim Up North - Tristen's ultimate origin... probably.
Honor Before Reason - Pyanfar sheltering Tully
Ho Yay - Tristen and Cefwyn, who make a good OT 3 with Ninevrise. Also Justin and Grant in Cyteen, including some nice art on Cherryh's own site.
Humans Through Alien Eyes: The Pride of Chanur
Intrepid Merchant-Pyanfar Chanur
Interspecies Romance - Double Subverted with Bren and Jago, since Jago is incapable of understanding what romance is. They still end up sleeping together.
King in The Mountain - There are legends of this in the Fortress series: the rulers of the second major country are called Regents explicitly because of this.
Long Running Book Series - the Foreigner series. Also the Alliance Union universe, if "stories in the same 'Verse by the same author" counts as a "series".
Of the People - Faded Sun
Obfuscating Stupidity - A lot of people accuse Tristen of this, and even his best friend gets paranoid about it on occassion. Subverted since Tristen just really has that little clue about the world he's found himself in, complicated by the fact that he perceives reality differently.
Our Elves Are Better - She uses several varieties. Wood Elves are common. Tristen is a subversion: he's a Cloudcuckoolander who spends a lot of time needing help and advice from the older and wiser humans around him, as opposed to giving them advice, and while he does give advice, it's not condemnation of human culture and so on but practical stuff like 'Remember to close the windows.'
Owl Be Damned - Owl in the Fortress series, especially in the beginning.
Physical God - Tristen, pretty much.
Power of Friendship - Averted in the Foreigner series, or even inverted, since Bren will generally pay for feeling that way. Invoked in the Fortress series, where Cefwyn is told that about the only option he has for dealing with a Physical God who was probably brought back in order to overthrow him is to get Tristen to like him too much to want to. It works.
Reality Warper - Tristen, in the Fortress series.
Rescue Romance - Tristen and Ninevrise are sort of set up to have one of these. She marries Cefwyn instead.
Rightful King Returns - Tristen, who doesn't want any.
Ritual Magic - In the Fortress universe, complicated by the fact that a lot of ordinary actions have ritual magic significance and modern people don't know this. A Sealed Evil in A Can nearly escaped because the church had been remodeled and the priests started walking the wrong lines, messing up the Geometric Magic. It works for perfectly normal people, but better for Half Human Hybrids and it's amazing how many descendants Tristen and his fellows have running around. Tristen eventually becomes Dangerously Genre Savvy about this, leading to some Cassandra Truth and Cassandra Did It moments when people don't take the warnings seriously.
Rule of Three - Serious Business for Tristen, because the Ritual Magic of the setting means that repeating something three times puts magical power into making it true, and Tristen has a lot of power to throw around. Most people, on the other hand, don't get that it is that important.
- Also a felicitous number to the atevi.
Samus Is a Girl - The Paladin
Space Fighter - Hellburner centers on a fairly realistic Space Fighter -- the titular Hellburner. Being essentially a carrier launched missile-firing-missile it is exceptionally difficult and physically punishing to fly.
Tactful Translation - A central trope of the Foreigner verse, where Bren's tact and diplomacy has resulted in him being the paidhi, the only one allowed to translate between the humans and the aliens, even when he is no longer the only person who can speak to the aliens.
The Verse - Most of Cherryh's works fit somewhere in her Alliance Union universe. Note that her website doesn't necessarily show all the linkages, considering only the novels on the "direct line" in that universe; afterwords and appendices link many of the others in, including some of the seemingly-fantasy works.
The Woobie - Tristen. Mentally very young, he loses the only father he's ever known to a nameless evil and sees his face locked in the walls; then there's the identity issues and how likely they are to cost him his new home and family, and the fact he keeps getting abandoned by people especially when he really needs them. And the fact the forces of evil kill his birds a lot. Then he starts noticing that Uwen is aging.
Too Dumb to Live - Bren Cameron's reaction to his temporary replacement turns out she's a Not So Harmless Villain and the several times in the Fortress series when Tristen tells people that they really do need to do something that seems utterly trivial or like an enormous headache and they think it can't be that important.
Vampire Invitation - Human dwellings are guarded by lines. Making sure that those lines aren't weakened either by carelessness or enemy action is a major concern in the Fortress series.
Wild Magic - Tristen and the real Big Bad are sort of avatars of it.