Look, real men just can't read science fiction by women, you're there in the plot, ray guns are blasting, things are coming to an exciting climax, then suddenly, for no reason, there is a 10 page section describing what type of shoes the hero/heroine is wearing - totaly kills it.
Yes, I'm joking (Well, except for Richelle Mead's Succubus series
).
As for authors with initial, it seems fairly random, sometimes because they are writing in a genre prodominantly dominated by the gender they are not and sometimes for no reason at all - Or possibly to make them seem more literary ala H G Wells, G K Chesterton, J D Salinger, J R Hartley
.
The only author I can think of where the initial is used for a reason was the late Iain M Banks (If the M is included then it is science fiction, if not them mainstream fiction)