This small collection of eight short stories is an impressive anthology of distinctive stories told in distinctive ways by an author who cannot seem to settle on one particular type of story or one particular style of writing.  There is the magnificently moody and darkly apocalyptic Sky Blue Silence I with it nightmare future described in curiously deadpan way, the colour of fairy take whimsy of Eli Martin and the Magic Duck, the fantasy satire of Dream Zingers, the surprising mystery of Mistaking Patricia and the intuitive though unpolished human dramas played out in Mutiny Over the Taking of Tea and Toast and the title story, Casting Shadows.  The story are short, easy to read, and will give the reader something to think about aside from the $20 he or she just spend on the paperback.