Science Fiction and Fantasy Books You Can Read for $5 or Less

Something strange is in the Brighton air. Everywhere newly-promoted Sarah Gilchrist looks, unsettling things are happening. A Wicker Man is burned on the beach at dawn with a body inside; a painting titled The Devil’s Altar is stolen from the Brighton Museum; a vicar who casts out demons goes missing; and a rare medieval manuscript of the occult Key of Solomon is stolen from the Jubilee Library.

Then Gilchrist’s flatmate, Kate Simpson, discovers that acts of sacrilege and grave robbing have been routinely taking place in Brighton and the surrounding villages. And ex-Chief Constable Bob Watts is puzzling over inscriptions in his late father’s books. Specifically, books by occult writers Dennis Wheatley, Colin Pearson—and the feared Aleister Crowley, cremated in Brighton in 1947.

Old Religion and New Age collide and the body count mounts as the Devil’s Moon slowly rises . . .

Aidan is poised to take his monastic vows—until a girl enters the abbey, one who hums of the number eleven. Aidan has the ability to hear the humming of numbers, a buzzing energy given off by living things. He is captivated and tormented by the mysterious girl, Lana, who has some unusual abilities of her own. How can he become a monk when his mind is filled with impure thoughts?

Before he can begin to sort his feelings out, the Vikings raid. Only Aidan and Lana can save the village from certain, violent death—and only if they learn to trust in their mysterious talents.

Part political thriller, part fantasy, part near-future science fiction, part family drama, Doors of Death and Life is both exciting and thoughtful, a literate excursion into X-Files territory.

In How Like a God, Rob Lewis gave his friend Edwin Barbarossa the Pearl of Immortality that had once belonged to Gilgamesh. Seven years later, the space shuttle ferrying Edwin home from a stint on the new moon colony catches fire. Everyone dies except Edwin. First he's hailed as a hero. Then he disappears. It's up to Rob to rescue him from the man who will stop at nothing to take the secret of immortality for himself.

Welcome to secret world hidden behind shadowy fairy glamour, where thieving spriggans rob you blind, beautiful banshees mesmerize you with their song, big green trolls kick heads at nightclubs and vampire Mafiosi rule the streets. This is the world of Erica Hayes' Shadowfae Chronicles. Here, in Shadowglass, a seductive magic mirror lies hidden deep in a demon's lair, with a simple warning: don't stare at the glass…
Ice is a light-fingered fairy who can't resist a look at the powerful mirror. 

She and her fairy friends run confidence games, pretending to be fortune tellers and bedazzling customers with their glamour. But Ice longs for more—she wants a real life, a respectable job and something to strive for. The mirror offers her a chance to achieve everything she's ever dreamed of. But when she pilfers it, she discovers that its power comes with a price: the mirror is a gateway to obsession and madness... and it will take every trick in her arsenal just to survive.

It's been 10 years since the world officially ended. In the last city on Earth, Jon Salt is addicted to Sadness, a drug that invokes its name, and obsessed with his lover, Michelle; both of which threaten to drive him insane. Strange creatures and new technologies appeared in the last days of humanity and the widespread adoption of teleportation technology sundered the fabric of time and space, leaving a smattering of looping ghosts. It is a sad, monotone world, but the remaining populace is happy, thanks to the anti-depressants in the water supply.

The last government on Earth has taken a special interest in a gift that Jon possesses: the ability to make his thoughts real. Jon must rely on that gift and the help of a few unlikely friends to stay one step ahead of those who desperately want to use him for something far more sinister than even he could dream.

As 01-01-00 approaches, Susan Garnett, a senior analyst at the FBI's high-tech crime unit, and Cameron Slater, an anthropologist, must draw on their combined knowledge of ancient glyphs and modern algorithms in order to crack a code hidden in a formidable computer virus. Susan traces the virus's signal to its point of origin, an area near Tikal, the site of one of the largest cities of the ancient Maya. Susan and Cameron travel to the remote jungle, convinced that if they fail to solve the riddles, both ancient and new, before the turn of the new millennium, the virus could trigger a powerful event of global proportions.

Set in the early nineteenth century, Pharos is a dazzling ghost story from award-winning author Alice Thompson.

A young woman is washed up on the shores of Jacob's Rock, a remote lighthouse island off the coast of Scotland. She does not know who she is or how she got there. She has no memory. The keeper of the lighthouse and his assistant take her in and feed and clothe her. But this mysterious woman is not all that she seems, and neither is the remote and wind-swept island.