Salon

Robert Sheckley, a U.S. science fiction writer renowned for his humorous short stories, came to Ukraine last month for the Portal sci-fi convention. On April 27, the author, who has a reputation for neglecting his health -- he remained a chain smoker despite a recent heart attack -- suddenly fell ill and was hospitalized in one of Kiev's private clinics. He was diagnosed with a severe pulmonary condition, and his condition remained critical for almost a month.

Here's the good news: Sheckley has partly recovered, and it seems he will soon return to the United States. After intensive therapy, he is breathing by himself and can discuss his plans with his hosts and his daughter Anya, who flew to Kiev to help.

Here's the bad news: It turned out that no funds were available to cover Sheckley's medical expenses. The treatment at the clinic cost about $1,000 a day, to say nothing of the costs of taking the writer home. At some point, it was unclear what would happen to Sheckley, who has many fans in the former Soviet Union.

Here's the good news again: A call for help, launched by the convention organizers and Anya Sheckley, mostly through Internet channels, yielded incredible results. The collective effort was enough to cover all the relevant costs. Interestingly, its success was not so much due to a handful of large donations, but rather to hundreds of smaller ones, which poured in from Ukraine, Russia and other countries with Russian-speaking diasporas.

The Sheckley case raised a few controversial issues. First, it turned out that the writer is far more famous in Russia than in his native United States. This is not that uncommon: Two or three generations of young people grew up reading his stories in brilliant translations. While the short story genre was falling out of grace in the West, it remained popular here, and Sheckley was a household name in many families. Second, the effort proved the fantastic -- no pun intended -- power of a writer's fan base. Third, the Sheckley case highlighted the fact that visits of foreign guests are often organized very sloppily in the former Soviet Union, with nobody able to explain why the aging author had no medical insurance for his trip.

In this whole business, one of the most unexpected revelations was the fact that a famous writer, known to every Russian sci-fi fan, was not a millionaire. Understanding that popularity is volatile, takes different forms and is not easily countable in monetary terms may have a deeper impact on the Russian public than the success story of helping one writer. Even if it is a genius of humorous science fiction like Robert Sheckley.