I'm currently round-robin-ing among 5 free ebooks, each of which I am enjoying immensely, so I thought I would write them up a bit of recommendation.
1)
Complete Stories of Guy de Maupassant, in 13 volumes, of which this is the first, from Project Gutenberg.
IMHO the very best short story writer ever in any language. Maupassant does in a few pages what no one else can do no matter how many words they string together - evoke original characters in bright bold excruciating scenes filled with drama and revelation.
2)
Japanese Fairy Tales by Yei Theodora Ozaki
Spinning themes familiar to fairy tales of all cultures but with distinctively Japanese turns, from their perpetual ocean imagery to their traditional mores and manners, and surprising resolutions you would never even dream of finding in Grimm's or Arabian Nights or Russian, Italian, Native American or Chinese or any other stories.
3)
Tokyo Zero by Marc Horne
<i>"One man goes to Tokyo to end the world. It goes fairly well.
As a Japanese cult gets ready to stage a massive attack, they are forced to recruit a secretive young bio-chemist from the West. They hide out on the fringes of Tokyo, taking care of the daily business of preparing for the apocalypse, until the foreigner's secret past starts to come to light and threaten their future dreams."</i>
I'm enjoying his ambivalent and ambiguous writing style, where sentences stubbornly undermine themselves continually. It's quite engaging and deservedly one of the top ten most downloaded free original ebooks from Feedbooks.
4)
How to Disappear Completely by David Bowick
<i>Sitting at the top of a Ferris wheel overlooking the Boston skyline, Josh’s life takes an unexpected turn, and things will never be the same. Along with the many surprises on his life’s new path, he’ll come to take life advice from a family of ducks, get in a bloody war with a dog, lose his job over a spilled drink, wake up in the hospital, apply to work at an adult-themed novelty bakery, and find out that people often aren’t what they seem. When you're at the top of the world, there's nowhere to go but down.</i>
This book is just a fresh and funny romp from the very first sentence on. No wonder it's the most downloaded free original ebook from Feedbooks. People love this book. If you have a sense of humor, you will too.
5)
Heavy Metal Harvest Dreamby Simon Royle
This is one short story I had to read all at once. From the start a gripping suspenseful tale of desire and necessity, courage and risk, of one man's feverish devotion to his small daughter and her future. Highly recommended