Stephen Lomer

This book contains a number of short stories written by a talented author. The book itself is short so for people who have really busy lives and just want to read something short this could be one of those books. The cover of the book is very appealing to the eye and in fact when I first saw the book it was the cover that drew me to it which then encouraged me to read further.

It starts off with a story about a grown woman who behaves like a spoilt brat when her mother ordered the wrong flowers for her baby shower. The flowers that Ermengarde wanted were called stargazer lillies but because the florist didn’t have that particular flower in stock her mother agreed for the florist to provide tiger lillies instead. As a result of this Ermengarde decided the function couldn’t possibly go ahead so she cancelled it in spite of the fact that people were arriving already. This story played with my emotions in that I found myself thinking how childish this soon-to-be-mother was behaving. She came across as a snob and if that was Lomer’s intention he did a very good job. I couldn't stand her!

In Wallflower and Casanova we encounter a story that sounds futuristic in nature and takes the reader on a romantic journey that didn't start out that way. There was a lady who was trying to save a number of people due to injuries incurred as a result of a war that was going on at the time and helping her in this was a helicopter pilot who beamed up each of the injured to the relative safety of the aircraft. You'll need to read the rest of the story yourself as this is a good example of how the author surprises the reader with the ending.

All the stories in this book were all different from one another and lacked a sense that they were at all formulaic. I particularly liked how Lomer led the reader along in such a way that just when you think you’ve worked out what the ending is going to be he pulls a swifty and adds a little twist at the end. Therefore, the reader learns very quickly to not take any of his writing at face value but rather be prepared for the story to change at the last minute.

I enjoyed this author's work so much that I would happily read more of his work.

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The story is focussed around trying to break up an errorist cell that is determined to create lots of errors in the written word so as to kill the vast majority of the populace. The Typo Squad has to catch these people so as to protect the world. The only people that can do this are those rare people who don’t die from seeing errors. These people have other reactions, some funny and some embarrassing (at least some people may think so).

This is the second book of Lomer’s that I’ve read. It was a quick and easy read with short chapters and not overly wordy. Lomer has a very unusual sense of humour, or at least some people may think so. He also has a gift of being able to turn simple phrases into a funny names. For example a couple of the characters in this book are called Autumn Leaves - one of the Typo Squad - and Anton Nym - the bad guy. Whilst this is a funny book more because of the clever use of English, it is necessary to note that it can be crude in spots but this isn’t overdone, had this been the case I would never have finished the book which would have disappointed me enormously. It is well worth a read.… (más)