I finished reading Distress by Greg Egan. It turned out to be a better book than I expected! The annoying protagonist was less of a self-insert character than I initially assumed, and most of his small-minded beliefs about politics and gender get satisfyingly demolished as the story develops.
The plot centers around a conference where a handful of scientists are trying to develop a Theory of Everything. I think the book's most glaring flaw is its treatment of religions, which take the form of "Ignorance Cults" that are explicitly anti-science. Egan is really unable to imagine the religious impulse as anything except an excuse for people to hate on science, and it's a very silly caricature. Similarly, he naively imagines pure science will solve all the world's problems, and is condescendingly dismissive of anyone who tries to apply a moral or social lens to science.
Anyway it's a deeply weird book and a fascinating read if you can get past the first few chapters, 7/10