This hopeful and very human story moves between multiple POVs, from cephalopod aliens to people who could be your neighbors, and follows how humanity and aliens alike adapt to finding a new intelligent species in the universe. Will there be peace, or will there be war?
This novella releases on April 28th, 2026, but you can grab your copy now from our Apex catalog with a special preorder discount of 30% off both the paperback and ebook editions.
Also, a paperback preorder exclusive: all paperback preorders will come with cephalopod-themed keychains!
For booksellers and reviewers, information for ordering ARCs or wholesale copies for your bookstore can be found below.
DESCRIPTION: Multitude by Marie Vibbert
We float to the surface, and we see that there is more to the world than the ocean. We see stars.
Then one day, we hear a song from far away.
It could be nothing, a new dance of energies made by stars muttering to themselves... but it could be everything. We pull tight to your direction in the hope that the universe may gift us a conversation. A banquet.
In Australia, a SETI Technician asks her colleague, "A fake from 44 parsecs?"
In Nevada, a soldier flinches as unidentified craft fly overhead.
In Beirut, a mathematician pets her cat and thinks about language.
We are coming. For the hospice orderly with open arms, the seamstress in her alleyway shop, the lawyer angry at her neighbor's sloppy garden. For you are many, and cannot speak as one.
And yet we see you communicate without words. We see you organize and build.
We see you killing us.
For fans of Ray Nayler, Ann Leckie, and Martin MacInnes, follow the hivemind of cephalopod aliens and explore the power of language, community, and hope.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Marie Vibbert is a Hugo- and Nebula nominated author, with short fiction that has appeared over 100 times in top magazines like Nature, Analog, and Clarkesworld, and has been translated into Czech, Chinese, and Vietnamese. Her debut novel, Galactic Hellcats, was longlisted by the British Science Fiction Award, and her work has been called "everything science fiction should be" by the Oxford Culture Review. She is the editor of the 2026 Triangulation anthology, Bad Romance. She also writes poetry, comics, and computer games. By day, she is a computer programmer in Cleveland, Ohio.
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REVIEWERS:
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BOOKSELLERS:
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Contact our distributor at IPG orders: orders@ipgbooks.com
ISBN: 9781955765497
MSRP paperback: $18.95
MSRP ebook: $9.99
Page Count: 150
Trim: 8.5 x 5.5
Rights: U.S. & Canada
Distributor: Independent Publishers Group
