The Hacker and the Ants

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.

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.

A cyberspace yarn from the author of The Hollow Earth (1990), etc. Jerzy Rugby writes computer programs for a company developing a household robot and shares his apartment with Studly, an advanced prototype. Jerzy finds that his equipment is infected with ``ants''--rogue programs like viruses apparently released by his oddball-genius boss, Roger Coolidge. Suddenly, he's fired and immediately hired by a second company that is developing a rival robot. Studly releases the ants into the global TV system, which promptly crashes, leaving Jerzy facing a major lawsuit--though his new company bails him out and provides a lawyer. But once Jerzy has perfected the robot, his contract is terminated (no more bail, no more lawyer). The ants, meanwhile, have occupied large areas of cyberspace and are rapidly mutating, intruding on the real world to develop robots of their own. Naturally, they turn on their creator, leaving Jerzy with a dangerous mess to sort out. Sophomoric and excessively didactic, with an obscure plot: of interest largely to teenage computer buffs and Rucker regulars. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Impatient hackers itching for the next leap forward in computer technology will be thankful for this, the latest vivid romp through cyberspace wonderland. As a senior programmer for GoMotion Inc., Jerzy Rugby stays plugged into his state-of-the art virtual reality equipment, allowing him free rein over cyberspace in order to design the brains behind supersophisticated GoMotion robots. His assignment is put on hold indefinitely, however, when a horde of cyberspace ants invades both his computer deck and the software of his personal robot, Studly. The brainchildren of Jerzy's boss, Roger, the ants perfectly execute their role as continuously evolving, self-replicating memory thieves and soon take control of the fibernet. In the process, Jerzy is fired from GoMotion, indicted for computer sabotage, and conned into the service of a shady robotics competitor known as WestWest. Rucker's tale engagingly previews a Silicon Valley that's just around the corner and displays a wealth of potential computer innovations that is truly breathtaking. Carl Hays