"Snake and Ocean, Ocean and Snake"
by Robert Silverberg
Form: Novelette
Year: 1984
ID: 1076
Publication history:
- ????: The Year's Best Science Fiction, Second Annual Collection, St Martins Trade paperback, as The Affair
- 1984: Playboy June 1984, Magazine, as The Affair
- 1989: Pavane au fil du temps, J'ai lu Mass market paperback, ISBN 2-277-22631-9, 352 pp., in French as Idylle
- 1992: Pluto in the Morning Light (The Collected Stories of Robert Silverberg Volume 1), Grafton Trade paperback, ISBN 0-586-21369-4, 396 pp.
- 1992: Secret Sharers (The Collected Stories of Robert Silverberg Volume 1), Bantam Trade paperback, ISBN 0-553-37068-5, 546 pp.
- 1992: Secret Sharers (The Collected Stories of Robert Silverberg Volume 1), Bantam Hard cover book, 546 pp.
- 1995: Killing Me Softly, Harper & Row Mass market paperback, as The Affair
- 1999: Pavane au fil du temps, J'ai lu Mass market paperback, ISBN 2277226319, 352 pp., in French as Idylle
- 2003: Voile vers Byzance: Nouvelles au fil du temps, tome 3, 1981-1987, Flammarion Trade paperback, ISBN 2080682547, 768 pp., in French as Serpent et ocan, ocan et serpent
Other resources:
[None on record]
Comments:
Chris Maitland is an ordinary securities analyst in San Francisco. At least on the outside. Inside he has a special gift — the ability to communicate over long distances with other gifted people. He lives well enough with his secret, and his wife has no idea of his ability. And in fact it makes little difference from day to day. Most of the people around the world who share the gift are mentally unstable, and he gets little joy from conversing with them. But he often lets his mind roam in search of a kindred soul, someone with whom he can share his gift. Then one day he contacts Laurel Hammett, a potter from Phoenix, and they commence upon a strange and beautiful relationship.
Silverberg's preferred title for this story is . Alice K. Turner, fiction editor at Playboy, called it .