Michael V. (VanCise) reviewed If you like Palahniuk's other works, you'll enjoy Rant on 11/11/2008 + 5 more book reviews

In Rant, Chuck Palahniuk takes the reader on a wild ride where it's difficult to separate reality from fiction. The title character, Rant Casey, intentionally infects himself with the venom of poisonous spiders, snake venom, and the rabies virus. Because he's a sort of hybrid being/super-human (or at least a supercarrier of disease) he can survive the toxins and disease and uses the side-effects of the disease or toxin to his advantage. Specifically, spider venom gives him sustained erections and the rabies virus takes away his ability to "boost" (an escape undergone by characters in the book via a port located at the back of their necks through which they boost transcripts of things others have recorded), which enables him to achievve the mental state necessary to travel through time. The book could be categorized as science fiction given the ports as well as the fact that urban society is divided into daytimers and nighttimers. As with Fight Club and Choke, Chuck Palahniuk introduces medical knowledge and other factual information which is stimilating, whether or not its true (and I have not tried to verify the facts, medical or historical, though I assume some are created/fictional and others are actual). If you like Fight Club, you'll enjoy Rant. There are revelation moments in the storyline of Rant just as in Fight Club. The story builds on itself, tidbits of information being released to the reader through various characters though things are more unresolved at the end of Rant than in Fight Club.

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