I've been re-reading Ender's Game from Orson Scott Card. It's probably one of the best all time sci-fi books out there. The other books in the series degrade substantially. The first book, however, is totally self-contained.

The book exhibits the types of things I always enjoy in a good story: The good guys are very intelligent. The bad guys are very intelligent. It's a book just full of smart people in every sense and you can see each character trying to accomplish their goals while fully aware that those who oppose them are monstrously clever. The one thing that is unusual about the book is that the main characters are children. These gifted children have been chosen from across all the world to save the world from an impending alien invasion.

I've read this book time and time again and each time I read it I learn something new of it. It's not just entertaining, it's truly inspiring. It taught me a great deal about what leadership is about. I'm a very imperfect leader. I know how I should behave when performing leadership functions but it does not come naturally to my persona. My instinct is to be more of the comic relief. I prefer to tell jokes and make people feel good than to tell them what to do.  Those people who only know me from what I write would probably find that surprising. But that's the thing -- when I write publicly, I'm having to alter my behavior to accomplish my goals. It is something that has taken years to even begin to master and every year I realize there is still so much more to do.

In the book, however, Ender, as a child, has to figure all these things out very quickly. The stakes are very high. The fate of the world is on his shoulders. But throughout it all, he recognizes that there is the person he is and the person he must be to accomplish the goals set in front of him.  But this is just one of the many insights that the book shares about human nature and the world that are pretty fascinating.

If you haven't read this book and are into sci-fi at all, I highly recommend it.