My Strange Russian Fanfic Adventure

Or, How My Fiction Became Published in Krycek's Home Country...

In the late summer of 2003, I received an email from someone in Russia informing me that my TXF fanfic had been translated into Russian and published as part of two collections that were supposed to contain episode adaptations from the TV series. (If you’re wondering which of my incredibly wonderful stories were so worthy of being completely – and I’m talking word for word – plagiarized, they were Crossing Lines, Two Steps Back, Truths Revealed, Truths Untold and Water’s Edge.) This person actually sent me some page scans from one of the volumes; the one reproduced here is for Truths Revealed.

Over the course of the next three months, my Russian correspondent, other helpful folks in the TXF fanfic community (via private emails and this original thread) and I did some investigating, resulting in emails to the publishers (AST and Terra Fantastica) and an actual letter sent on my behalf. My last contact with my “informant” was in late November 2003, and I have not heard anything about this matter since. Did it stop? I don’t know. Was there ever much I could do about it? Probably not. Despite the outright audaciousness of the act, was it the tiniest bit flattering? Hell yeah, she says with a smile. (Despite the fact that some Russian readers were apparently not thrilled with the selection of MSR over actual case files… at least that’s the impression I got from the rudimentary web “translation” services at my disposal.)

In the years since, I've been able to get a translation from a Russian X-Files “news archive” site showing two books published on August 23 and 26 of 2003. (You can still access the original Russian version of the page here, which shows links to my old coolfreepages website).

Here is the page that provides details about the volume that's called Swiss Watches. Two Steps Back and "cross the Rubicon" are actually credited to me, although I'm not entirely sure what story the latter title refers to (I'm assuming it's Crossing Lines). I suppose, technically speaking, that makes my accusation of plagiarism incorrect, at least on this website.

However, a little further digging reveals that on another site, those two stories are attributed to a Cyril Pleshkov (a translator who lives in St. Petersburg) and someone by the name of Alexey. (Charges of plagiarism back on...)

Finally, here is the actual Hidden Truth volume with more evidence that I wasn't credited for the work:

Apparently, the readers in Russia are very clear on the fact that these are fan fiction works. (And I wasn't the only one "affected".) The fact that AST chose to publish these books has been highly controversial from what I can tell, with most people being very upset that these fanfic interpretations have been allowed to "mix" with the series' canon. The following explanation may shed a little bit of light on why fans were so offended:

Reader feedback that I got from this side of the ocean has always been that I gave Mulder and Scully a very realistic outcome. That's not the impression I get from reading comments on Russian fan sites about "my" stories.

Tomorrow: If you think it's a neat feat to be a published author in Russia, how about on Amazon???