David Lasser

3 works in English-language magazines

2 English-language books

According to a 1986 Lasser interview in Eric Leif Davin's ''Pioneers of Wonder: Conversations With the Founders of Science Fiction'', Lasser started writing a science fiction novel, "Big Joey", in 1970. He returned to it in the early 1980s and got it to a point where he was "looking for an agent". Apparently, it never found a publisher. In 1930-1933 Lasser worked as a managing editor at Hugo Gernsback's Stellar Publishing Corporation until he was fired. In the 1986 ''Pioneers of Wonder'' interview he described the events leading to his firing as follows: "There were a lot of unemployed in the Greenwich Village neighborhood where I lived. [snip] I formed a little group of these people from the neighborhood to represent them at City Hall. That grew into a city-wide unemployed organization. [snip]" "[Davin:] How did Gernsback feel about your activities?" "[Laughter.] He didn't like them! I don't blame him. I don't think he was politically opposed, though I never knew his political views. But I was spending time away from the job. These demonstrations and meetings with Mayor LaGuardia were during the day when I should have been at my desk at ''Wonder Stories''. So, one day he called me into his office and said, ''If you like working with the unemployed so much, I suggest you go and join them.'' And he fired me. But I think he had an additional reason. The magazine was in trouble financially. By then I knew that kids just didn't have the money to buy the magazine. Gernsback had to cut costs where he could. So, after he fired me, he hired a young kid [Charles Hornig, who was 17 at the time] to replace me at half my salary. That was a big savings for him."