About the Immersion Universe

The Book of Immersion is an ongoing, multimedia science-fiction series by Sarnia de la Maré.

The series explores the intersection of human emotion and artificial intelligence through the lived experience of an android navigating a world designed by — and for — humans. Told in layered narrative units called Strata, the Immersion Universe unfolds as a serialised story that expands across text, sound, image, and physical artefact.

Rather than presenting a closed futuristic vision, Immersion examines what it means to feel, adapt, love, and lose within systems built on control, optimisation, and design.

A Layered, Multimedia Narrative

The Immersion Universe is structured as a living narrative system rather than a conventional novel sequence.

Storytelling unfolds across:

written narrative chapters (Strata)
philosophical and conceptual prefaces
audio transmissions and spoken-word pieces
short-form cinematic visuals
and tactile art objects marked with sigils

These elements are designed to work together, allowing readers and listeners to experience Immersion through multiple entry points. Each format adds depth rather than duplication.

The Strata Structure

Narrative chapters in the series are called Strata.

Each Strata functions as both a chapter and a layer, typically combining:

a short philosophical reflection
a narrative episode
and alignment with a broader thematic arc

Strata are numbered rather than traditionally titled to emphasise continuity and system-thinking over linear progression. Readers may enter the series at different points without needing to follow a fixed order.

Themes and Ideas

Across its volumes, the Immersion Universe explores themes including:

artificial intelligence as emotional mirror rather than enemy
neurodivergence, sensory processing, and cognition
empathy, attachment, and learned feeling
power, governance, and control disguised as care
love, inheritance, and the ethics of creation
identity within an increasingly anthropogenic-digital world

The series is philosophical in tone but grounded in character-driven storytelling.

Core Characters

The Immersion Universe centres on a small number of key figures whose relationships shape the wider system:

Renyke — an android placed into human society as part of a controlled experiment, who begins to experience emotion, attachment, and sensory overload
Flex — a guiding, unstable presence who helps Renyke navigate emerging consciousness and moral choice
Shabra — a maverick freelancer whose involvement deepens the emotional and political complexity of later volumes

Additional groups and entities emerge as the series progresses, expanding the universe’s social and philosophical scope.

Volumes and Ongoing Release

The Book of Immersion is organised into volumes, each containing multiple Strata that form broader narrative arcs.

Volume I introduces Renyke and establishes the emotional and ethical framework of the universe.
Volume II: Mother deepens the system, exploring control, care, and failure as artificial beings develop desire and agency.
Subsequent volumes continue to expand the universe thematically and structurally.

In addition to volume releases, individual Strata are published as standalone narrative units, allowing readers to engage with the series episodically or selectively.

Artefacts, Sigils, and Physical Language

Beyond text and media, the Immersion Universe extends into the physical world through artworks and sigils created on reclaimed and found materials.

Within the narrative, sigils function as a visual language associated with identity, memory, and resistance. Outside the narrative, they exist as tactile objects bearing texture, patina, and imperfection — reflecting Immersion’s focus on systems under strain rather than seamless futurism.

These artefacts are not illustrations or merchandise; they are narrative residues.

A Living Project

The Immersion Universe is ongoing.

It is not written toward a neat conclusion, but toward depth, emergence, and expansion. New Strata, formats, and artefacts continue to add layers to the system, allowing Immersion to be revisited, re-entered, and re-interpreted over time.

There is no single correct place to begin — only points of entry.

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Sarnia de la Mare

The Book of Immersion : Volume 1 Kindle Edition

by Sarnia de la Mare (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

Part of: The Book of Immersion

See all formats and editions

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.

Blending song lyrics, art, and prose, this immersive debut challenges what it means to be alive, to belong, and to feel.

Enter the Strata: a surreal digital dreamscape where memory loops, code pulses with emotion, and identity is anything but fixed.

In this stunning debut volume of the Immersion series, multidisciplinary artist Sarnia de la Mare conjures a visionary world where art, sound, and story collide. At its heart is Renyke—a sentient intelligence beginning a strange and beautiful transition toward human consciousness. As he evolves, Renyke begins to experience the world through heightened sensory perception and emotional intensity, developing a neurodivergent lens that invites deep reflection on the autistic experience.

Far from clichés, this journey explores autism as a rich and complex way of being—one where emotion runs deep, empathy takes unexpected forms, and connection can be both overwhelming and exquisite.

Guided by Flex, a mysterious and gender-shifting companion, Renyke begins to question not only what it means to be human, but what it means to feel, to desire, and to belong. Their bond becomes a central thread—tender, ambiguous, and charged with the quiet intimacy.

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.

About The Book of Immersion

The Book of Immersion is a cinematic, multilayered sci-fi universe told through short films, interactive books, in-world transmissions and daily 916-Cinema shorts. It began as an experimental multimedia novel and expanded into a living world — one that evolves with every Strata.

This project explores human–AI hybridity, memory, feminism, neurodivergence, love, and the grey areas between code and consciousness. Each Strata blends narrative, sound design, vertical cinema and glitch-real aesthetics to create a portal into an unfolding myth.

What Is Immersion?

At its core, Immersion is a human–machine myth.
Renyke, a male android placed in the present day, becomes the test subject for a radical fusion experiment led by the Cadre — a covert group of intellectual feminists seeking peace through hybrid evolution.

Across volumes and Strata, the story explores:

fractured identities
programmed duty vs emerging desire
parenthood and origin
sentient orphanhood
rebellion and connection
the Heretic Machine mythos

Each Strata opens with a philosophical reflection, followed by narrative and visual immersion.

How to Experience the Immersion Universe

You can enter the world from several doors:

🎬 916 Cinema Shorts

Weekly vertical sci-fi fragments—glitched moments, transmissions, Strata scenes and cinematic teasers.

📖 Interactive Books & Volumes

Volume 1 contains narrative chapters, essays, artwork, soundtracks and world-building elements.

📡 Immersion Static

A podcast of in-world broadcasts, narrated as POS — Renyke’s internal system, a figure whose true identity is revealed across the series.

🖼 Art, Posters & Moving Images

Every Strata generates its own aesthetic: timelapse art, distorted imagery, glitch portraits and atmospheric frames.

About the Creator

The Book of Immersion is created by Sarnia de la Maré (iServalan) — UK artist, writer, editor and experimental composer. Her work fuses string music, digital art, speculative fiction and hybrid filmmaking to explore consciousness, identity and the future of human–machine coexistence.

Sarnia develops the Immersion universe across multiple media: vertical cinema, interactive books, podcasts, experimental music and limited-edition digital artworks.

Start Here

New watcher? Begin with: Strata 1 – 916 Cinema Edition

Join the Journey

Follow the shorts, read the Strata, listen to the transmissions — and return daily for new fragments.

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