The Internet boom was fueled by a strange combination of utopian idealism and flat-out greed. On one end, visionaries aspired to change the way people lived, consumed art, and communicated–and, to a certain extent, they succeeded. On the other hand, opportunistic entrepreneurs aimed to make a quick buck while the going was good. In All The Rave, Joseph Menn's compelling account of the file-sharing service Napster, the boom's two sides are personified by a hero and a villain. The former, precocious Napster inventor Shawn Fanning, emerges as a well-liked, surprisingly grounded prodigy. The latter, his uncle and business partner John Fanning, is depicted as greedy, arrogant, and short-sighted. All The Rave begins with a quote from Hamlet, and while Menn never accuses John of killing Shawn's father and marrying his mother, he suggests that the elder Fanning did just about everything else to sabotage Napster's chances for long-term success. While Time cover-subject Shawn served as the public face not only of Napster, but of the Internet revolution as a whole, John controlled 70 percent of the company (to Shawn's 30) and called the shots. Portrayed as a struggling businessman with a checkered history of failed businesses, bad blood, and scuffles with the law, John Fanning was, in Menn's account, an albatross around Napster's neck from the beginning, scaring away the potential partners and investors who weren't already spooked by the system's foundation in hacking and piracy. All The Rave occasionally threatens to get bogged down in dry business details, but Menn successfully redirects the book's focus to the all-too-human quagmire at its center. The technology was new, but an old-fashioned clash of egos, personalities, and visions played almost as large a role in Napster's demise as its powerful enemies in the music industry.