Tellers

by Rick Moss

The Colony is in mourning. The residents of the Hudson Valley farming collective share a close-knit life and a vision for remaking urban neighborhoods with the skills they are learning. They have also shared a loss so devastating they fear the shock will undermine all their efforts. In a scheme to unburden themselves, they turn to storytelling. Through their heartrending accounts, we view blighted American cities from society’s fringes — from the squatter homes of Detroit to the embattled streets of Philadelphia. We meet a veteran who returns home to find his neighborhood walled off into a ghetto, an architect who drafts blueprints from the dreams of the dispossessed, and take a hellish subway ride through a dystopian New York. In their tales, we witness the tug of war between blame and forgiveness and, ultimately, the cathartic power of storytelling.

237 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 30, 2016

About the author

Rick Moss is a Brooklyn-based multi-disciplinary artist. He has authored four literary sci-fi novels.

His most recent, ONCE A MAN (2026, Rare Bird), tackles the impacts of overreaching AI on our society. A boy barely sixteen embarks on a mythic search for his father and collides with secrets that could alter the fate of humankind. Once a Man is a sweeping, poetically rendered epic of survival, love, and the perilous promises of technology.

EBOCLOUD (2013, Aqueous Books), cited in scientific journals for its predictions of a coming “social singularity,” was included in the syllabus for a Duke University course, alongside William Gibson’s NEUROMANCER and Dave Eggers’ THE CIRCLE. TELLERS (2016) stitches together a series of short stories, cathartically told by residents of a communal farm who experienced a joint trauma. IMPOSSIBLE FIGURES (2020) centers on an ill-fated partnership between a conceptual artist and a self-destructive quantum theory physicist using looping narratives.

Rick studied painting and printmaking at The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, creative writing via Tufts University, and earned his degree at California College of the Arts where he focused on video production and photography.

Rick’s early career was devoted to design for print, video, animation, and web. He was a principal and co-founder of the online business publication, RetailWire.com, which he ran profitably for over 20 years and sold in 2023. At RetailWire, Rick oversaw the editorial department, as well as marketing strategy for such website sponsors as IBM, SAP, and Oracle.

Rick’s editorials have appeared in USA Today and Forbes. He publishes his songwriting as Rock Moses on SoundCloud.

For details on Rick’s creative projects, visit: rickmoss.art

Rick Moss currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. He was born on an Air Force base in post-War Japan. He grew up in rural Maryland and suburban Baltimore. He met his wife Catherine at art college in Oakland, California. They have two adult daughters, Alison and Genna.

Reviews

[Jeffrey Keeten · Rating 4 out of 5]

”Any case, all the digital whatnot is gone, as is all the geeks what made ‘em. And with ‘em went the power, water, and wherewithal to keep the world in some semblance of livability. As I look at it, when you got a world ruled by geeks that’s got too complicated for even the geeks to comprehend, it’s an epic cluster-fuck waiting to happen, which is exactly what did happen, thereby once and forever ending everything down into this present sinkhole of total, irreversible uselessness.”

I was watching the television show Timeless the other day, and the show’s heroes had been dispatched back to 1969 to NASA for the moon landing. The “villains” were there to put a computer virus into the system that would make it impossible for the astronauts to return. NASA used 2 megabytes for the guidance system to bring those astronauts down on the moon and safely off the moon.

2 megabytes

My iPhone has 128 gigabytes. How many fleets of rocket propelled spaceships could I fly to the moon with my phone? Or how about to Mars? All I use it for is to call people; yes, I actually dial numbers and talk to people. I text with my kids and growing numbers of millennium friends. I check my GR updates to see if anyone...hello Major Tom, this is ground control...has read my latest review. I use Google to look something up, usually inspired by something I’ve read. I just checked my phone history: Lola Montez, John Carradine, Sun King, bloodshotbooks, Tuppence Middleton, Mona Lisa, Chinese Pepper Steak, H. P. Lovecraft, Gregorian chants, Scotland, PA, Charles II of Spain, Kay Francis, abebooks, Hall Caine, and Catriona.

Good thing I’m not single because that phone Google search history looks like a guy completely undateable.

I guess my question is, why do we need so much power? I talked to one of my favorite geeky IT guys, and he said that all those bytes are needed for speed. We have the need for speed. The problem is we are getting things so complicated that we are leading up to what Rick Moss calls the epic cluster-fuck. So overnight, we go from Speedy Gonzalez down to Cecil Turtle.

Don’t get whiplash.

In this world that Rick Moss has created, things have become less complicated because it had to. No televisions with spoon fed entertainment, no Facebook, no Goodreads (now wait a minute, let's not get crazy here), or blockbuster movies with screaming cars and earth shattering explosions. What would happen?

People still need entertainment.

We still value our singers and storytellers, but if things go completely bat shit crazy, their worth will go up like real estate in the Upper East Side of New York City. Homer (and I don’t mean Simpson) will be wined and dined like a king. The thing is, everyone is a storyteller, and in this society people want to hear each other's stories. We learn about pain, first love, lost love, victories, defeats, and ethics. It is a survival mechanism, a collective of wisdom that is supposed to make each generation stronger and smarter if they can see the stories for what they are.

Rick Moss is going to move you around in the timeline of his story. If you like linear written books, this is not for you. What I appreciate about what he did with this back and forth jive is he kept my brain just slightly off balance. It made me thirsty for his words so that my brain could catch up to where I was fifteen minutes ago. No worries, it is really well done, and people pay a lot of money for illicit drugs to make their brain slide sideways.

There is a “geek” in this story by the name of Whit, a brilliant programmer who is definitely meddling with things that frankly shouldn’t be meddled with. He makes a program for his boss that allows him to remove memories from his head with, of course, disastrous consequences. Does Whit learn from this experience? Nope. He has the power to do things beyond anything any other programmer has ever been capable of doing. It isn’t about right or wrong; it is about proving he is the best.

As a HaHa isn’t this funny, he creates the Voice of GOD app. I think that Rick Moss should have patented this idea because it is going to be worth millions. The idea is you ask this app for guidance, and the app answers you with circular logic. It is a spiritual GPS. The question is, does it work?

”It works alright. It’s just not based on science. It’s based on religion. In other words, it’s pure crap.”

Not only do millions of Christians start using the app, but they become addicted to it. They ask the application for guidance not just on big issues...will my mother recover from cancer...but also on things like, should I turn left or go straight?. GOD, guide me. A senator from the Deep South hears about this app, and he thinks that maybe he could use it for his own purposes. He sends some of these strung out junkies, Voice of God people, on a quest to find Whit and bring him to Jesus...well the senator, but the same thing.

I first had contact with Rick Moss when he read my review of Dhalgren and reached out to me because there are a dearth of Samuel R. Delany fans knocking around this site. Moss is a true fan of Delany, and I can see Delany’s influence on his writing. The main character of Dhalgren is a poet in a post-apocalyptic situation. Poetry may take a back seat to the newest sitcom in today’s society, but when other forms of entertainment go away, poetry will make a resurgence.

Her freestyle was funky without losing the regal,
Flowin’ and poppin’ in rhythms amazing,
With bare-breast abandon she scoffed at the legal,
Her feet leaving swipes of macadam a’ blazin’.
And on her closed lids, a set of lips was dyed,
Silently, slyly singing to me by winkin’,
And on her lips was painted the pupil of an eye,
So with her mouth set upturned, she glared at ol’ Lincoln.

This book is a smart, fascinating, unique look at our way of life imperiled, and maybe it should be. A simpler way of life allows us to focus on the things most important. The Luddite in me applauds.

If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten

[Fabian · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best example of storytelling-as-plot in all history probably belongs to our almighty Geoffrey Chaucer. No plot? Well... For a master, this might actually seem to present no problem at all...

Let the players themselves color their shared route towards Canterbury Cathedral! The journey is waaaay more important than the destination. If anything, this physical collaboration, the one unifying collective direction, is largely irrelevant to some extent. In his new, very modern (postapocaliptic-ish) novel Tellers, Rick Moss gives us a wide array of protagonists--satellite characters--all with genuine voices that avoid uncreative modern mannerisms & achieve a true storytelling power. They are so distinct that, for me, the biggest pleasure was derived from their artful, never tepid interactions. Also, it IS one of those novels that begs a second reading. Maybe even Faulknerian character graphs & plot charts!

[John Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

The cells on average in the human body are replaced every seven years. So what are we? What assures our continuity? What over the course of our lives constitutes the discrete individual each of us refers to as 'me'?

People are their stories. In fact, history is the aggregation of millions of individual stories into a collective narrative which attempts to embrace the substance, style, direction, purpose of all those individual stories.

In this highly unique and creative novel, we are thrust into the primeval dystopia of an underground world created by the disintegration of social structures and destructive symptoms of a civilization in collapse. Each person is both a listener to stories of others and a "teller" of his or her own story. Here stories are not just biographical exercises, but the very essence of survival itself. They are the social bond of an alt-community, the mechanisms for coping and redemption, a path for finding meaning. Two of Moss's characters offer us this exchange ...

“What did you care about?” she says. He shakes his head. “Finding something to care about.”

And doesn't that often sum up the central pursuit of most of us at the many crossroads of life?

[Terri Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

**I received this book from the author in exchange for a review**

This is one of the most unique books, I have read in a long time. At first, I did not understand what the author was trying to do because the timeline jumps around a little. It didn't take long to get hooked, though. This would have been a completely different book if the author chose to write the story in a linear fashion and just "told" the reader what happened. By showing us the story through the viewpoints of the various characters as they created stories to understand what happened themselves, the author gave us a moving story. I felt like I knew the core of each of these characters. One of the reviewers said it was a book that needs to be read twice. I would agree with that. I would add that it is also a book that you will WANT to read twice.

[Ann de Jong · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pull up a stoop and listen!

It has taken me awhile to review this because I wanted to do justice to Tellers.
Some thoughts: Writing is exact, gorgeous and rich. Offers haunting visuals, some of which come up for me as I think about our current national angst. While the issues are contemporary and old, both, I often think how remarkably prescient Rick has been in naming the deeper currents that have surfaced so glaringly right now.
He brings a wickedly keen mind to his characters. There is a wide and deliciously detailed range of voices held together by an unpredictable and "telling" trajectory. Highly recommend if you like a beautifully written novel and a gritty existential view on Homo Sapiens. Throughout Rick has his unafraid finger on the pulse of what ails us and on the ways of our redemption.

[NaTaya Hastings · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars really, but after all the updates, Goodreads still doesn't allow half stars. Ha.

Finally getting around to reviewing this book. All in all, I really enjoyed the book. It took me a little longer to get into it than I usually like (maybe sixty pages or so), but once I had gotten into it, I was into it, if that makes any sense.

At first, it is a little hard to understand what is going on. You kind of get thrown into this story, and you're like, "Wait.... what? Go back..." But then, you get into the swing of things, and you're like, "Ooohhh... I get it now." Once you hit that point, you are really invested.

Alright. Go no further if you don't want spoilers.

Fair warning...

Turn back...

Spoilers ahead...

Alright, that was your last warning. While I am going to try to avoid any of the big spoilers that would completely ruin the book for you, I cannot guarantee that a few small ones won't slip in here and there.

So, basically, the book is made up of stories. It centers around this one group of individuals who come together a bit like an AA group. (That is not what they are. But they meet in similar fashion.) These individuals all come from a place where they lived and worked together as a collaborative unit. (Have you ever heard of the Zendiks? Or maybe The Farm Community in Tennessee? If not, Google them, or Wulf Zendik, and you will get a good idea of what this community was like.) Basically, they were a group of people with individual skills who come together and live in a place separate from mainstream society. They are self-sufficient and avoid the outside world whenever possible.

The book is written in a very odd sequence of events... not quite flashbacks, but... kind of flashbacks... (I know; I am making very little sense.) Moss kind of brings you in at the end of the story and tells it to you backwards through the character's stories and... yes... through flashbacks, I suppose. So, these two new people join the community, and each of them has his/her own reasons for doing so, but neither of them join simply because they are craving a break from society.

Of course, we do not know these reasons right away. They are hidden from us, the readers, until Moss feels like it is time to bring them out to the light, and that is part of what makes the book so interesting. We have to wait for it, and when it comes, you are both surprised and not surprised at all.

What I really loved about the book were the stories within it. Basically, the premise is that... even now, when their world has basically fallen apart for them, people still need entertainment. There is a story (within the story) that really hammers this lesson in very well. It was one of my favorite stories in the whole book, and even it was told in parts.

Another thing that I loved was that Moss managed to make you feel something for every single character in the book. He developed them so well and made them seem so real. I saw myself in a couple of the characters. I felt... yeah... that could have easily happened to me.

From the young genius who thinks it would be funny to create an app that allows people to "talk to God" and then has to run away from life when people become addicted to the app and want to worship him as some sort of god himself, or at the very least, a prophet to be confined and protected. Others want to use him. They see how gullible the masses are and how much faith they put into the Voice of God app and want to use that to their advantage....

To the young woman who had a shit childhood and just wants to confront her father and demand answers of him...

To the mentally unstable patriarch, who believes in a better world, but whose mind is just... gone.

To the distrustful and angry young woman who knows better than to accept strangers into her life but gives in anyway and ultimately pays a price for that...

To the good Samaritan who just wants to be kind to people, but ends up looking a little stalkerish and crazy despite his, ultimately, pure motives and his possible savior complex that won't allow him to just do the sensible thing and let people he barely knows go their own way...

These people were real to me because they all represent pieces of me that could make the same mistakes and end up down the same, rotten path.

All in all, it was a very, very interesting read. I was very happy to have had the chance to read it. I plan on checking out more of Rick Moss's books in the future.

[Gary · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Story About Story Tellers and Their Dystopian Thriller

I found this work to be brilliant in its originality of goal and premise. To be able to portray several wonderful "Tellers", requires skill beyond simply one style of storytelling. Also the deterioration of society was of a plausible degree and not at all too far fetched.

Meanwhile the underlying events were tantalizingly pieced together via alternating movements backward/forward in time and from the various storyteller points of view. I was entertained throughout the book and wished it would have kept going a bit longer. My final thought is that I find this book very thought provoking, so I'm going to stop here and ponder it some more.

[John Greenwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an absolute joy to read.

The characters became so known to me, despite the how relatively short this book is. Though their stories, we learn so much about them - whether that be an abstract ideology or cold hard facts about their life experiences.

I also enjoyed the structure of the chapters, as we as the readers were drawn into the 'event', projecting and then backfilling my views on the characters.

I'll certainly be looking out for other work by Rick Moss.

This was one as a Goodreads Giveaway, so thank you very much.

[Nicholas · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a pretty good read. I enjoy the way the author told thr story. It was a quick and interesting read. Loved the colors on the cover.