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The Hacker and the Ants: Version 2.0 Paperback – January 1, 2003

by Rudy Rucker (Author)

3.9 46 ratings

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This cyberpunk adventure from Philip K. Dick award-winner, Rudy Rucker, reads like a ripped-from-Reddit romp of white hat hacking, artificial intelligence. run amok, and an unstoppable electronic 'bugs.'

From a two-time winner of the Philip K. Dick award, and one of the founding fathers of cyberpunk comes a novel about a very modern nightmare: the most destructive computer virus ever has been traced to your machine. Computer programmer Jerzy Rugby spends his days blissfully hacking away in cyberspace - aiding the GoMotion Corporation in its noble quest to create intelligent robots. Then an electronic ant gets into the machinery ... then more ants .... then millions and millions of the nasty viral pests appear out of nowhere to wreak havoc throughout the Net. And suddenly Jerzy Rugby is Public Enemy Number One, wanted for sabotage, computer crime, and treason - a patsy who must now get to the bottom of the virtual insectile plague. "Rudy Rucker warms the cockles of my heart ... I think of him as the Scarlet Pimpernel of science fiction." - Philip Jose Farmer

Print length

308 pages
Language

English
Publication date

January 1, 2003
Dimensions

5.5 x 0.73 x 8.3 inches
ISBN-10

1568582471
ISBN-13

978-1568582474
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Rudy Rucker is a two-time winner of the Philip K. Dick award and a professor of computer science at San Jose State University. White Light, a novel; Gnarl!, a collection of his short fiction; and Seek!, a collection of essays, are also published by Four Walls Eight Windows.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Four Walls Eight Windows; 2nd ed. edition (January 1, 2003)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 308 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1568582471
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1568582474
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 11.7 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.73 x 8.3 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,230,043 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #3,040 in Cyberpunk Science Fiction (Books)
- #4,349 in Hard Science Fiction (Books)
- #100,419 in Mysteries (Books)

Customer Reviews:
3.9 46 ratings

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Rudy Rucker

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Rudy Rucker has written forty books, both pop science. and SF novels in the cyberpunk and transreal styles. He received Philip K. Dick awards for for the novels in his "Ware Tetralogy". His "Complete Stories," and his nonfiction "The Fourth Dimension" are standouts. He worked as a professor of computer science in Silicon Valley for twenty years. He paints works relating to his tales. His latest novel "Juicy Ghosts" is about telepathy, immortality, and a new revolution. Rudy blogs at www.rudyrucker.com/blog

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3.9 out of 5

46 global ratings

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Paranoia. It's not just for breakfast anymore.

Reviewed in the United States on August 23, 2021

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"The Hacker and the Ants" is a wild ride. The language is intoxicating — Joycean, if Joyce knew coding, as opposed to Aquinas. Beyond the form, Rucker captures the substance of what it means to be in the frame. The paranoia (and solipsistic implication) of fighting to prove you're not the bad guy, when your employers, the media, the crowd, and consensus reality insist that you are.

One person found this helpful

a trip into alternative trip-space

Reviewed in the United States on August 11, 2011

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Ok. I like this stuff. Fantastic super-reality. Is there really a SuperC language. IDK. I plan to read more of Rucker. It is fun, modern, silicon valley based. As a Cali, I can relate. If you like computers, games, make-believe and toys, try it.

Steven Woodcock

A Dated But Fun Book

Reviewed in the United States on December 30, 2020

This a fun book about AI going rogue, though at the time it was written that wasn't quite the slant it would have today.

The book begins pretty simply with a hacker building intelligent robots, taking the form of ants. Things are going well enough but then the ants escape, and as our hacker hero is working on how to recapture them things begin to go badly. Before too long our hero is wanted for murder, and there seem to be ants EVERYWHERE....

Recommended, though the reader has to understand it's a smidge dated. Fun though, no question about that!

Cross Robert Heinlein with Monty Python and you start to get the idea.

Reviewed in the United States on April 16, 2015

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I miss the late Rudy Rucker. His plots were brain twisting, weird, funny but not camp. He was a true one of a kind and truly nuts in the best way. Cross Robert Heinlein with Monty Python and you start to get the idea. Not silly nor childish, never talking down to his audience, Rucker had a mind for characters and situations that could turn a formulaic plot into one of the most entertaining reads you ever had. Don't believe me. I'm not the one selling this book. I dare you to read just one RR and then tell me your not hunting for more.

One person found this helpful

Great Cyberspace Speculation

Reviewed in the United States on March 17, 2014

The Hacker and the Ants is a conjecture on the world of cyber-space and robots, it is science-fiction rooted in science. The story moves quickly, is easy to read, and provides a fun atmosphere for the reader to immerse in. The reason to get into this book is Rucker theory on cyber-space, how programming will be done, - with a factual basis in how programming and computing is already done - and the positive and negative outcomes. Rucker's theories on the future of cyber-crime leading to physical reactions, and snoops who have no moral compass, is inspired. The genius of the story is: genetic programming, where code continually improves upon itself. Leading to the idea of code and robotics out-doing their human counterparts, only for an inspired twist to bring the message full circle.

However, outside of the speculation, and the protagonist, most characters are two dimensional skeletons who move the ideas along. The description of a immigrant California workers is on the line between bitingly honest, and racist. Sex scenes are done in the passive voice, and while I appreciated the punch these usually deliver, they are shallow. Drug-use of the non-speculative type is here aplenty -- it ranges from interesting plot point to banal. One point in particular felt careless as the Hero goes from having fifteen until he must meet his girlfriend to an hour; with a constant series of adventures in between. If there is one saving grace to these robotic side characters it's that they help strengthen Rucker's themes of privacy, cyber-space, and robotics.

Overall Rucker's book is a fast, entertaining, and imaginative science-fiction story. The shallow characters are forgiven through the overall strength of the plot, the protagonist, and brilliant content.

Reviewed in the United States on December 16, 2021

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Funny great author

Predeliction for prediction

Reviewed in the United States on June 24, 2000

Only four years ago an artificial intelligence engineer and an evolutionary biologist collaborated on a speculation of how computers and humanity will combine, becoming thinking robots. Beyond Humanity:CyberEvolution and Future Minds was met with a fanfare of resounding silence. Well done with strong evidence and good presentation, the book challenged traditional thinking about the separation of machines and humanity. It should have gained greater notice than it did. A pity, for this book should have raised immense discussion.
Now, Rudy Rucker has turned the same ideas into a speculative fiction account of a programmer ['hacker'] using evolutionary processes to make robotic creatures biological. As with all evolutionary processes, his program gets out of hand and the creatures run amok, out of control. Only another robotic biological is capable of dealing with them.
If Rucker ever produced 'his best book' this is the one that qualifies. Many of his other works are loaded with a sloppy kind of mysticism that seems horribly inconsistent with his profession as a mathematics professor. This book seems to merge an audited biology course with his math skills in producing a plausible scenario of the future. That he makes this future so near makes the book even more compelling. Having railed against 'WHITE LIGHT' and SAUCER WISDOM, it was gratifying to find a work of his that tends to redeem his worth as a novelist. The writing, as always, falls below the worth of his concepts. Still the book made an entertaining afternoon. If you haven't the patience or courage to confront BEYOND HUMANITY, you might try this as an introduction to the possibilities of artificial intelligence.

4 people found this helpful

Must-read prologue if you've read Software, Wetware, Freeware, and Realware

Reviewed in the United States on March 10, 2010

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Great book as expected from Rudy Rucker, it's a lot of fun, reads fast, has at least one new twist and one new idea every 3 pages. Light-reading, moves quickly, but gets you thinking.

NOTES: There are several references to other SF works, including "Perky Pat" (from PK Dick), "Imipolex" (a kind of plastic) from Thomas Pynchon, and there were others as well.

Top reviews from other countries

Toby King

Immature and badly written

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 29, 2008

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I am a big sci-fi reader and I love the works of authors like Isaac Asimov, P K Dick, Stanislaw Lem, Harlan Ellison and others. Coming to Rudy Rucker's The Hacker and the Ants, however, was a major step backwards.
While there's no denying that Rucker knows his science, his writing is several steps behind. This novel reads like it was aimed at, and possibly written by, young teenagers (if it wasn't for the sexual content I would have assumed that were the case). A potentially interesting concept is let down by massive repetition, bland style, and a predeliction for including completely irrelevant facts and descriptions. I wont be reading any more of these, instead I will stick to the more mature writings of other authors.

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