The Shadow Cast is a collection of twenty-two short stories ... but a book debunking any claim that a whole cannot be greater than the sum of its parts. Each tale in Mike Broemmel's new anthology can proudly stand alone in the greatest tradition of story- telling; but read in sequence his painstakingly ordered works pack the punch of an epic novel. They present an unbroken saga of stark, simple truth that is all but unique in the annals of fiction. People, places, periods develop and seamlessly intertwine, story-by-story. The Shadow Cast is an insightful record of a reality we never realized existed before Broemmel. The shadow may sometimes represent shelter and escape, sometimes the umbrella that obscures so many of our quiet doings. The cast? The cast is you ... you and that guy down the road apiece. It's about how you manage to share this world with him and her as earth bound companions, fellow mortals.