The Hacker and the Ants [Hardcover]

Rudy Von B. Rucker (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1994

Jerzy Rugby, a software hacker involved in the development of a virtual-world product, gets into hot water when the ""virtual ants"" he had been using break into the real world and destroy network television. By the award-winning author of Wetware.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

This super-smart and wildly goofy work by Cyberpunk author Rudy Rucker is a hilarious and totally engrossing tale of electronic pestilence and conspiracy. Protagonist Jerzy Rugby is trying to create truly intelligent robots. While his actual life crumbles, Rugby toils in his virtual office, testing the robots online. Then, something goes wrong and zillions of computer virus ants invade the net. Rugby is the man wanted for the crime. He's been set up to take a fall for a giant cyberconspiracy and he needs to figure out who--or what--is sabotaging the system in order to clear his name. Plunging deep into the virtual worlds of Antland of Fnoor to find some answers, Rugby confronts both electronic and all-too-real perils, facing death itself in a battle for his freedom. The Hacker and the Ants is funny, chilling, and surprisingly rich. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

With a protagonist named Jerzy Rugby, a realty company called Welsh & Tayke, hackers who call themselves Bety Byte and Riscky Pharbeque and computer daemons that look like ants and destroy digital television transmissions, Rucker's second novel clearly dwells in that peculiar subdivision of postmodernism known as cyberspace. As it is enthusiastically described, Rugby's attempt to design a household robot that can function even in the most dysfunctional of homes seems truly like the Great Work he believes it to be. Rucker ( The Hollow Earth ) defines each computer-related term that might confuse the reader, ensuring that everyone will be able to understand the travails Rugby endures after he is blamed for the release of the TV-disrupting daemons. As matters become steadily more absurd, Rugby ultimately deals with the evolution of the human race. Readers familiar with Rucker's previous foray into virtual reality may be pleasantly surprised by his more mature perspective here. Even those who don't break into paroxysms of laughter while reading of bankrupt LISP programmers should find the Antland of Fnoor fascinating.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 307 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow & Company; First Edition edition (May 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0688134165
• ISBN-13: 978-0688134167
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.9 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,186,619 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Philip K. Dick meets Arthur C. Clarke, December 8, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Hacker and the Ants (Hardcover)

This book seems largely an attempt to explain Rucker's ideas about using artificial evolution to create artificial intelligence--the same scientific ideas that underlie his Software trilogy, but here presented in a much more "realistic" setting. I prefer the surrealism of Software (which also packs more of a philosophic punch) but I did enjoy reading this book--as much for the slacker main character as for the AI inspired plot--and would recommend it over Software for those who are mainly concerned about the science in their science fiction.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A very realistic cyberpunk novel., October 12, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Hacker and the Ants (Mass Market Paperback)

This novel is much more realistic than William Gibson or Neal Stephenson, at least in the cyberspacial aspect of the book. The timeline of the book seems to be just one or two decades in the future, and although the robots maybe doesn't seem so realistic, the plot and the hacking, which I consider utterly realistic, more than compensates for it. The protagonist, Jerzy Rugby, is, compared to other cyberpunk novels, very vivid and detailed, probably because Rucker chose to write in 1st person perspective. The conspiracy reminds me of some similar American movies, and it is clear that Rucker knows quite a lot about computers. This is the most realistic cyberpunk novel that I've read, and I think that you should do the same.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Eclectic Cool..., May 7, 1999

By 

-gs- [[e-mail]] (ri) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Hacker and the Ants (Mass Market Paperback)

I'm a big fan of Rucker's books and this was no exception. Hacker tells the tale of a programmer stumbling headlong into a new (artificial) lifeforms' evolutionary struggle. The concept may sound familiar to many cyber-punk fans, but Rucker adds his own eclectic style to make a real page turner. It may not be up to the level of some of his later works, but its definitely worth the time.