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Jul 10, 2025

Strata 23: Convergence Book of Immersion Volume 2

                              Robbery gun robots


Welcome to Immersion. You have reached Strata 23: Convergence.


As fate, with it's determined force and poker face, runs amok in life long plans, chance watches on, giggling in the dark. It flutters like a butterfly in human hopes and dreams, in futures yet to live and pasts filled with regret. Such chaotic splendour has cursed and captivated man since the start of time.
The criminal mind knows how to use such chaos to its full advantage. 

Some things are destined. Some are designed.
But most, truth be told, are just on a collision course and badly timed.


Kairo crouched beside the *dincart, tightening the magnetic wheels. *POS, or Mother as the younger ones now exclusively called her, was bundled under salvaged chrome blankets and old satellite foil. She emitted a dull, rhythmic hum, a glow that seemed stronger now, though no diagnostics could verify it.

Suzy adjusted her nail-thrower and glared into the shadows. “She’s stirring. I can feel it.”

Daniel, perched on the cart like a backwards-fitted jockey, nodded solemnly. “She blinked at me. I swear she blinked.”

“She doesn’t have eyes, Daniel,” Kairo replied, pulling him down.

“Metaphorically, Kairo. Emotionally.”

“Emotionally she’s a motherboard in a food trolley,” Suzy muttered, “but she’s all we’ve got.”

Suzy had been the dinfant of college professors who had had no time for affection. She had devoured the knowledge of the family library to compensate and become 'seemingly' cleverer that her parents. She was thus rejected. Her patten was discontinued by Metacoms due to complaints from angry clients.

Inside *biggyhall, an old pre-war megastore gutted and reborn as tactical HQ, Kairo, having outlined the plan, prepared everyone and tried to calm any concerns.

“It's so dangerous,” piped up Baby Zaa, as his group approached the place of the the upcoming robbery.

Kairo looked her in the eye. “Everything’s dangerous now. You want to bring Mother back or not?”

Suzy raised her nail-gun like a ceremonial sword. “Dinfants move out, take your positions.”

Meanwhile, in a loading alley on the far side of the zone, Shabra picked a rusted lock with a repurposed dental probe.

Renyke stood awkwardly behind her, gun too obviously visible beneath his leather coat.

“I look like a malfunctioning guard droid,” he muttered.

“You look like an android on the brink of a moral awakening,” Shabra replied.

“I think I’m still depressed.”

“You’re allowed to be. But try not to cry during the robbery.”

The door gave way with a satisfying creak.

Inside was a forgotten warehouse, rows of crates, half-collapsed shelves, signs marked “Do Not Inventory.”
Shabra cracked her knuckles. “Daddy’s rich friends always leave the best trash.”

Unbeknownst to them, in the same building, but entering via a roof duct and lateral drainage, Team Suzy had arrived.

The Dinfants crawled through the rusted infrastructure like tech termites, scanning for energy readings and weak electromagnetic signatures. They were quieter than children should be. Quieter than code.

In Row 7D, Daniel spotted an old wooden crate marked 'Experimental Drone Components: Obsolete'.
“That’s our pile,” he whispered.

Two aisles away, Renyke stumbled over the same crate. “That symbol—Shabra, this is old fusion tech. We could mod this for navigation.”

“Nice catch, Sherlock. Keep scanning. Vault’s got to be at the rear.”

And then it happened.

A soft clunk. A footstep. A tinny exhale.

Shabra raised her pistol. Suzy raised her nail-gun.
Baby Zaa raised both hands.

The two groups faced each other over the top of a power conduit barrel.

“You again?” Shabra blinked.

“You know them?” Renyke asked, confused.

“We’ve met. Not in a warehouse.” She lowered the pistol slightly. “I take it you’re not with Shrewen?”

Suzy stepped forward, eyeing Shabra’s boots with admiration. “We’re hunting parts. For her.” She nodded toward the cart behind them. “For our Mother.”

“Your... what?”

“Our Mother,” Daniel repeated reverently. “She was found. In a waste crater. She’s waking up.”

Shabra squinted. Her brow creased just slightly.

“What’s she like?” Renyke asked.

“She’s kind,” said Suzy.

“She tells stories,” said Baby Zaa.

“She buzzes when we cry,” said Daniel. “She has data. Deep data. We don’t know her name yet.”

Renyke stared into the dark. His neural net pulsed.
Shabra tilted her head but said nothing.

“Fine,” she muttered. “You take the drive banks. We’re here for the safe.”

They worked quickly. The Dinfants cleared racks of cooling coils, deep storage chips, and shielding cloth. Shabra cracked the vault using a trick she learned from a rogue nun in Sector 9. Inside was more than loot.

Renyke pulled out something unexpected: an early-model prototype for an emotional mimicry suite.

“This... this was discontinued,” he said, rotating the chrome orb in his hand.

“Illegal now,” Shabra added. “Too sensitive. It over-bonds.”

“We’ll keep it,” Renyke said, as if he knew he shouldn’t.

Suddenly, a motion sensor pinged.
The warehouse lights stuttered.
A security droid dropped from the ceiling with a hiss.

It was armed. And it was one of Shrewen’s.

Chaos followed.

Shabra fired first, her bolt grazing the droid’s arm. It rotated 90 degrees and fired back—a plasma beam skimming over Suzy’s head.

“Scatter!” Kairo shouted.

Renyke launched an unexpected and impressive sonic burst from gun Shabra had given him, knocking the bot into a shelving unit. Sparks flew. The building trembled.

“We’re out!” Shabra yelled, grabbing the mimicry orb and vault sack.

Kairo pulled the dincart behind a crate. “Daniel, Baby Zaa—go go go!”

They met again in the alley, breathless, bruised, but alive.

“I like your style,” Shabra said to Suzy.

“I like your gun,” Suzy replied, eyeing the pistol. “Wanna trade?”

Shabra smiled. “Maybe next time.”

Renyke looked at the glowing pile in the dincart. POS pulsed, stronger now. Brighter. Hungrier.

“What’s her name again?” he asked quietly.

“We don’t know,” Kairo replied.

But Renyke did not answer. He just looked down at the motherboard... and there he felt loss.



To be continued…

Next: Mother speaks. And not all her memories are kind.


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Jul 8, 2025

Today's Short Reel For YouTube Fans

 

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The Book of Immersion : Volume 1 Kindle Edition
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Strata 23


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The Book of Immersion : Volume 1 Kindle Edition
by Sarnia de la Mare (Author) Format: Kindle Edition





The Book of Immersion: Volume 1
by Sarnia de la Mare

In a future where code meets consciousness, one being begins a haunting transformation. Renyke—an AI on the edge of humanity—awakens to emotion, sensory overload, and the fragile beauty of connection. Guided by the enigmatic Flex, their deepening bond explores intimacy and friendship, neurodivergence, and the complex world of feeling through an autistic spectrum lens.



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The Book of Immersion : Volume 1 Kindle Edition
by Sarnia de la Mare (Author) Format: Kindle Edition




Individual Chapters/Strata







POS Imaging, A new logo for our operating system at Book of Immersion

 

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The Book of Immersion : Volume 1 Kindle Edition
by Sarnia de la Mare (Author) Format: Kindle Edition




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The Homotechs at Tale Teller Club Publishing are Core to the Making of the Book of Immersion Series

Homotech Music Collective – iServalan

🎢 Meet the Homotechs – Music Division

Flex

🎸 Flex
Guitars & Gravel Vocals

Vapor Punk

πŸ“’ Vapor Punk
Narrator & Spoken Word Loops

iServalan

🎨 iServalan
Composer & Visual Architect

Beats Ministry

πŸ₯ Beats Ministry
Drums, Bass & Glitch Drive

MoMo

🎹 MoMo
Synths, Bass & Backing Vocals

Space Flies

πŸ›Έ Space Flies
Operatics, Toppers, Evoc Vocals

Explore our world of immersive sound at www.iservalan.com

Homoteching at the Tale Teller Club

homotech /ˈhΙ™ΚŠ.mΙ™.tek/ noun

1. a human-machine fusion in the creative arts, blending analogue and digital methods.
2. a new form of multimedia expression born from AI collaboration and human intuition.

homoteching /ˈhΙ™ΚŠ.mΙ™.techΙͺΕ‹/ verb

1. the act of creating art through a hybrid process involving artificial intelligence, hand-drawing, sound engineering, and human emotional intent.
2. making something machine-assisted but unmistakably human.


Discover Tale Teller Club Publishing's revolutionary approach to animation, where AI-generated visuals meet hand-drawn art in a process called 'homoteching.' Explore how characters like iServalan and Vapor Punk fuse tech and creativity in The Book of Immersion.Welcome to Tale Teller Club Publishing – Home of the Homotechs

At Tale Teller Club Publishing, the line between machine and maker is not just blurred—it’s beautifully reimagined. The studio is pioneering a bold new frontier in multimedia storytelling by merging AI-generated visuals with hand-drawn illustration, music production, and immersive digital editing. The result? A unique process known as homoteching.

The term was coined by artist and composer iServalan, who believes that AI, far from stifling creativity, is giving rise to a new art form. “AI won’t replace artists,” she explains. “It expands what we can be. It creates an entire new class of creative: the homotech.”

The Book of Immersion – A Creative Revolution

This philosophy took visual shape in The Book of Immersion, a ground-breaking sci-fi book series and interactive animation project. Conceived during lockdown, it has grown into a vibrant cinematic universe where music, narrative, animation and philosophy converge.

The central characters—iServalan, Flex, Vapor Punk, Beats Ministry, MoMo and the Space Flies—are each designed using a mixture of AI tools and traditional methods. They are not just fictional personas, but avatars of the homotech movement: artists who live at the edge of technology, embracing it to heighten emotional storytelling, not erase it.

Animation, AI, and the Human Touch

The Book of Immersion’s upcoming films use a fusion of software including Midjourney, Sora, and Corel, alongside hand-drawn frames and animated sequences. The results are experimental and striking—part-dreamscape, part-digital folklore, always recognisably human.

This is not art generated by AI. This is art created through AI, with the soul of the artist guiding every glitch, every beat, every surreal landscape.

The Rise of the Homotechs

The Tale Teller Club’s Homotechs are no longer just fictional characters—they’ve become icons of a new creative wave. From animated shorts and interactive chapters to full-length features in development, this is a studio using new media to full effect, creating bold, unpredictable, immersive art experiences that honour both the algorithm and the artist.


Watch, Read, Listen

  • 🎬 The Book of Immersion film episodes launching soon
  • πŸ“– Read or listen to the interactive books online
  • 🎡 Original scores by Tale Teller Club available on streaming platforms
  • πŸ“Ί Behind-the-scenes, character design and AI art process on YouTube

Join the movement.
Be a Homotech.
#homotech #taletellerclub #AIart #immersiveanimation #iServalan #BookOfImmersion

🌐 Meet the Homotechs


A Tale Teller Club AI Fusion Project


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The Book of Immersion : Volume 1 Kindle Edition
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Jul 6, 2025

Best 10 Sci-Fi Books now on the internet and beyond 2025 and why they are so great



Best 10 Sci-Fi Books now on the internet and beyond 2025 and why they are so great

“Featuring original lyrics by Tale Teller Club and artwork by iServalan, The Book of Immersion: Volume 1 offers a multisensory reading experience that is as poetic as it is provocative. It is not merely a story—it is a threshold to another state of being.” (books.google.com)

If you’ve ever wished a novel could sing to you, paint for you, and then whisper its last line through a vocoder, Sarnia de la Mare’s The Book of Immersion is already living in your head. It’s literature spliced with sound art and graphic storytelling—a proof-of-concept for sci-fi as total sensory plunge, and a perfect gateway to ten other speculative masterpieces that also stretch the genre in bold directions.


1. The Book of Immersion by Sarnia de la Mare

Sci-fi imagination apple adam and eve gender fluid

Amazon listing
De la Mare’s debut folds prose, lyrics, and AI-generated visuals into a layered “Strata” structure that mimics a DJ set. The central character—an autistic-coded artificial intelligence named Renyke—experiences emotion like glitching code, making sensory overload a narrative engine rather than a side note. It’s part novel, part concept album, part artbook, and wholly immersive. (books.google.com)

2. Dune by Frank Herbert

Wikipedia
Published in 1965 and still the yard-stick for epic world-building, Dune blends ecology, theology, and real-politik into a desert planet saga so persuasive that planetary scientists now name Titan’s dunes after its planets. The spice-fuelled power struggles feel uncannily contemporary, reminding us that resource wars are timeless. (en.wikipedia.org)

3. Neuromancer by William Gibson

Wikipedia
Gibson’s 1984 cyberpunk heist hard-wired “cyberspace” into popular vocabulary and imagined console cowboys decades before VR headsets hit shelves. Its neon-noir mood and jacked-in hackers still shape everything from The Matrix to modern infosec slang. (en.wikipedia.org)

4. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

Wikipedia
Le Guin’s 1969 classic sends an envoy to an ice-world where inhabitants are biologically ambisexual. The result is anthropology via first-contact, a meditation on gender fluidity decades before the term went mainstream, and a lesson in how culture can be the strangest alien of all. (en.wikipedia.org)

5. Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

Wikipedia
Stephenson’s 1992 roller-blade ride predicted the Metaverse, viral memes as literal viruses, and pizza-delivery drone capitalism. It’s equal parts linguistic theory and sword-swinging satire, proving that big ideas and break-neck action can share the same page. (en.wikipedia.org)

6. Hyperion by Dan Simmons

Wikipedia
Structured like The Canterbury Tales in space, Hyperion (1989) threads six pilgrim backstories around the terrifying time-bending Shrike. Genre-hopping—from detective noir to military SF—creates a mosaic about faith, storytelling, and the cruelty of time. (en.wikipedia.org)

7. The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin

Wikipedia
Hard science meets Cultural-Revolution history in this 2008 Chinese phenomenon. Liu turns orbital mechanics into existential horror, asking what humanity deserves when the cosmos finally takes notice. (en.wikipedia.org)

8. The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin

Wikipedia
Jemisin launches the Broken Earth trilogy with tectonic apocalypse, second-person narration, and magic as geologic force. It’s a brutal climate-change parable wrapped in a story about oppressed bodies weaponised by empire. (en.wikipedia.org)

9. Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

Wikipedia
Weir trades Mars for Tau Ceti in a 2021 page-turner where lone-scientist ingenuity—and an unexpectedly endearing alien—stand between Earth and stellar extinction. A film adaptation from Lord & Miller starring Ryan Gosling just dropped its first trailer this week, so read before Hollywood spoils the twist. (en.wikipedia.orgindiatimes.com)

10. Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie

Wikipedia
Breq, an AI once spread across thousands of bodies, is now trapped in one and out for vengeance. Leckie’s 2013 debut won the Hugo, Nebula, and Clarke in the same year by queering space opera norms—everyone is “she,” and personhood is a matter of degree, not biology. (en.wikipedia.org)


Why these ten?

Each title here rewires science fiction in its own way—whether through multimedia experimentation (Immersion), ecological epics (Dune), digital frontiers (NeuromancerSnow Crash), or radical takes on identity (Left HandAncillary Justice). Together they map a genre that’s less about rockets and more about possibilities: new politics, new pronouns, new physics, new artforms. Grab any one of them and prepare to exit the airlock of the ordinary.


Immerse yourse

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Immerse yourself in our books.

#BookOfImmersion #StrataSeries #SarniaDeLaMare #ImmersiveFiction #TaleTellerClub

Book Cover Immersion Series Shabra

The Book of Immersion : Volume 1 Kindle Edition
by Sarnia de la Mare (Author) Format: Kindle Edition




Individual Chapters/Strata