What is the Best Modern Science Fiction? (Nominations Needed)

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What is the best modern science fiction novel or series?

Reminder- Our Best Non-European Fantasy poll is almost over. Unless I get a fantastic guest blog in the next 12 hours or so, results will probably go up tomorrow. So please head over there and vote (or vote again) for your favorite non-European fantasy setting.

BUT ALSO....

We need your nominations for the newest poll: Best modern science fiction (novel or series).  

Now back when Writing About Writing had about four regular readers, I did a poll on best Sci/fi or Fantasy series and it turned into a seven part poll with quarter-finals, semi-finals, and finals and just went on and on and on, so I learned a valuable lesson that day about breaking big categories into small ones.

The poll we'll be starting for August needs reader nominations. What is the best modern science fiction novel or series. For purposes of this poll we will be defining "modern" as the last 30 years.

Rules- 

1- As always, I leave the niggling of semantics about "science fiction" to your best judgement because I'd rather be inclusive. If you want to nominate a stand-alone Discworld novel as science fiction, I might arch an eyebrow at your ridiculous stretch, but I'm not going to argue. (Though you might need to "show your work" to get anyone to second your nomination.) As long as it's not Xanth or something, all I will do is check the publication date of the first book.

2- To avoid multi-decade spanning series being on our poll because an author tossed out a recent sequel, the book OR FIRST BOOK IN THE SERIES must have a copyright date no earlier than 1986.

3- You may nominate two (2) works of modern science-fiction. Remember that I am a terrifying megalomaniac who hates free will and all things that smell like liberty. To encourage reading and reading comprehension I will NOT take any books or series beyond the second that you suggest. (I will consider everything after your second rec in a long list to be "seconds" if the work is nominated before or after yours.)

3- You may (and should) second as many nominations of others as you wish. That is the only way they'll be making it to the final poll.

4- Please put your nominations here. I will take books or series nominated as comments to this post on other social media (Facebook or G+ for example); however, they may not get the seconds you need to go onto our poll because no one will see them. (Seriously, Deloris Umbridge got a nomination on our best villain poll, but she received no seconds because she was nominated on Facebook instead of here. And then everyone got sad that she wasn't on the polls.)

5- You are nominating WRITTEN WORKS, not their movie portrayals. CGI epic fights might be very pretty, but if you found The Martian to be too hard and sciencey (I didn't, but just by way of example), you shouldn't nominate it because you liked Matt Damon.

6- "Best" means whatever you as a reader think it should. Most challenging. Most engaging. Most fun. It's up to you what "best" means.