The novel is written as a first-person narrative, the memoir of a mathematician named Peter Hogarth, who becomes involved in a Pentagon-directed project (code-named "His Master's Voice", or HMV for short in the Nevada desert, where scientists are working to decode what seems to be a message from outer space (specifically, a neutrino signal from the Canis Minor constellation).
Acting on Hogarth's suggestion that the signal may be a mathematical description of an object (possibly a molecule), the scientists are able to use part of the data to synthesize a substance with unusual properties. Two variations are created: a glutinous liquid nicknamed "Frog Eggs" and a more solid version that looks like a slab of red meat called "Lord of the Flies" (named for its strange agitating effect on insects). There is some speculation that the signal may actually be a genome and that "Frog Eggs" and "Lord of the Flies" may be a form of protoplasm; possibly that of the alien creatures that presumably sent the signal...
- ISBN10 0749304901
- ISBN13 9780749304904
- Publish Date 2 August 1990 (first published 1 January 1983)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 19 October 2003
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Cornerstone
- Imprint Mandarin
- Format Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
- Pages 30
- Language English