The Hacker and the Ants is a science fiction novel[1] by American writer and mathematician Rudy Rucker, published in 1994 by Avon Books.

While his actual life crumbles, Rugby toils in his virtual office, testing the robots online.

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.

Rucker tells John Shirley in the introduction to recent editions, "I have never really left my body and gone to infinity's Heaven."