LGM is a novel set in the present. The year is not explicitly stated, but the time period could be any time at the start of the twenty-first century. The detection of an intelligent extraterrestrial signal sidetracks the routine existence of a radio astronomer, a reclusive mathematician and two computer entrepreneurs. The discovery and analysis of this intelligent signal from the extraterrestrials, affectionately called the Little Green Men, proceeds as it might in real life.