Scott Ellison has been building things for years. Often wandering beyond the leading edge, he has built factory automation systems, computer games, toys, software products, electromechanical widgets…and Thodkin Marblemeister stories. Now he has written a Thodkin book. As a professional technologist, Ellison has predicted the march of many technologies and now sees formidable technologies accelerating past human ability to cope with them: if science and technology will not be slowed, something else must speed up. That “something else” is humankind’s ability to reason about complex issues. Ellison pulls no punches: the limiting factor in our ability to reason is personality. In Thodkin’s Spear, Ellison skillfully deploys metaphor, allegory, science and storytelling to make a case for the key role of personality in meeting humanity’s challenges of the near future. It is a hopeful and optimistic voyage built upon a deep understanding of both technology patterns and human nature.