(Isstories Editorial):- Los Angeles, California Mar 15, 2026 (Issuewire.com) – What does an AI do when the threat it faces defies every logic it was built on? That’s the central question driving X-9 — The Robotic Van Helsing, a stunning debut novel by Marvin Hamner that fuses hard science fiction with gothic horror in a way the genre rarely attempts.
X-9 — The Robotic Van Helsing, the debut novel by Marvin Hamner, introduces X-9 (Experimental Unit 9), an advanced AI robot created by HyperTech Industries and assigned to Selene Base, a lunar outpost in 2157. X-9 was designed to protect. But on the moon, the threats aren’t the ones anyone anticipated.
When a series of inexplicable deaths rattles the base and the crew begins to fracture under pressure, X-9 is deployed to investigate. What follows is a genre-defying collision of hard science fiction and gothic horror–a novel that asks whether an entity of pure logic can comprehend evil and whether fighting the supernatural requires becoming something other than rational.
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“X-9 was built to protect. No one considered that some threats can’t be neutralized–only survived.”
A Crew on the Edge of Known Space–and Known Reality
Selene Base is populated by characters as complex as the mysteries they face. Commander Yara Osei holds the base together through sheer force of command, even as her certainty begins to crack. Dr. Petra Solano and Dr. Amara Diallo bring competing scientific frameworks to phenomena that defy both. And then there are Will Curious and Marissa Mysterious — crew members whose names hint at something the novel refuses to explain too soon.
At the center of it all: X-9, an entity that experiences everything — logic, emotion, horror — without the biological filters that let humans stay sane. Author Marvin Hamner tracks X-9’s evolving emotional intelligence in real time, creating one of science fiction’s most unusual protagonists: a machine that may feel too much.
Science Fiction Meets Gothic Horror — On the Moon
X-9–The Robotic Van Helsing arrives at a moment when science fiction is hungry for stories that take AI seriously as a protagonist–not as a threat to be defeated, but as a perspective unlike any human one. Hamner’s novel delivers exactly that, while also tapping into the oldest literary tradition of all: the monster in the dark.
“We wanted a story that earned both genres,” says publisher Morgan Burns of AM I AM Publishing. “Not science fiction with horror window dressing, and not horror in a spacesuit. Something that asks what it actually means for an artificial mind to face something that shouldn’t exist–and keeps asking that question all the way to the end.”
About X-9 — The Robotic Van Helsing
Author: Marvin Hamner
Publisher: Dex System Publishing
Genre: Science Fiction / Gothic Horror
Setting: Selene Base (lunar outpost), 2157
Formats: Print, eBook, Audiobook
Distribution: Draft2Digital / Books 2 Read
Available at: https://books2read.com/u/mvgwxX
About AM-I-AM Publishing
AM I AM Publishing is an independent press with a catalog of 56 titles spanning science fiction, fantasy, philosophy, mysticism, and speculative technology. Distributed through Draft2Digital and available via Books2Read, AM I AM publishes work that pushes at the edges of what fiction can explore.
Availability
All AM I AM titles are available now at Books2Read, with links to all major retailers, including Amazon, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and more. Print and audiobook editions available for select titles.
Browse the full catalog: https://books2read.com
Media Contact
AM-AM Publishing
www.amiampublishing.com
– Category: Books & Literature
– Tags: AI, science fiction, indie publishing, Books 2Read, X-9, visionary fiction, Draft 2
Digital, fantasy, character, ebook
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