Ender's game by Orson Scott Card

            Review by : Arghya Roy

The book takes place several decades into the future, on an Earth that has fought against creatures known as Formics (or 'buggers') on 2 separate occasions, known as the First and Second Formic wars. The protagonist of the book, Andrew 'Ender' Wiggin is 4 years old, when something called a monitor is put into his neck, and 2 years later, he's selected for a military academy known as 'Battle School', where kids start training at a very young age to become commanding officers of the International Fleet (IF). However, the superior officers at the school have something special planned for him, as they plan to isolate him from the rest of the cadets. The purpose of this is so that he can lead the IF in a final confrontation with the Formics, whereas previously the Formics attacked Earth, and now the IF will attack the Bugger homeworld. He's 6 years old when he starts his training, and the superior officer, Hyrum Graff, has already started to isolate him from the rest of the 'Launchies' (first year's). The 'leader' of the launchies is a french recruit named Bernard, who loses power when Ender starts to publicly humiliate him via, the messaging system.

Soon, Ender is the youngest person to get promoted to a trooper, who work under toon leaders, who follow the Team leader/commanders orders. These armies then battle each other out for supremacy in the 'Battle Room', a zero gravity battle simulation that helps in the promotion of team commanders. Ender is under the Salamander Army, which is led by Bonzo Madrid (who is the main character in the book, 'Pretty Boy'), and he continually harasses Ender throughout his career as a Salamander soldier. He befriends Petra Arkanian, who is an expert sharpshooter, and he learns some things from her. Afterwards, he get's sent to the Rat Army, under the toon leader, Dink Meeker, who is one of the most brilliant tacticians in Battle School. His toon is separate from the rest of the Rat Army, and he refused promotion, since he hate's the teachers, and thinks that the Formic wars were just an act to get the IF political power.He learns more tactics, and then he's promoted to toon leader in the Phoenix army, led by Petra, and they perform brilliantly. However, the IF administration plans to make every odd go against Ender, so they make him the Team leader of the Dragon Army, which consists of untrained Launchies, the best of them being a boy named Bean, who is actually a genetically modified human, which is told in later books 

in the Enderverse.

 In addition to that, IF admin makes Ender go against 2 armies in 1 battle, and against all odds, he beats them. Later, he was transferred out of Battle School to go to Command School, which was almost unheard of, since you needed at least 4 years of pre-command learning, and Ender graduated 2 years early. They (Colonel Graph and Ender) went on a spaceship to a semi-planet named Eros, which was earlier a Formic base. On the planet, Ender is given a room, and the next day, there's a man sitting on the floor, obstructing the path to the door. The man is Mazer Rackham, the IF officer who single-handedly defeated the Formic fleet. He becomes Ender's new tutor, teaching him new strategies and tactics. After a while, some of his friends (including Dink Meeker and Petra Arkanian)are transferred to Command School, and together, they're know as Ender's 'Jeesh'. Together, they start training in holographic mock battles (which are actually being fought[he was tricked by the IF]), and on the final battle, Ender only has 20 old starships, which only carry 4 star fighters, resulting in 20 Starships and 80 Star fighters. 

Even though Ender had a conscious, he thought it was a simulation, so he did exactly what Mazer Rackham did decades ago. He fired the most destructive weapon that humanity ever made at the bugger home world. The world literally blew up in 3 seconds, decimating the Formic fleet along with it. Ender found out, and he went to sleep for days, and during his sleep, the Strategoes, Polemarch, and the Hegemon fight a war for 5 days. At the end of the war, Valentine comes to Eros, and explains how Peter and her pretty much took over the Hegemon. Also, she tells him that he'll never be safe on Earth, because of Peter, so she (along with Rackham and Ender) are going to the first colony. After the space voyage, he goes on the colony, and sees that there is a bugger queen larvae there, which he is chosen to bring to an uninhabited world, to let the buggers live, and that's the end of the book.

   Overall, I rate this book a 9 out of 10, because I like Space Sci-Fi books, and this was exactly the kind of book I like. Also, I liked the characters, and the idea of 3 political parties, instead of 1 unified Earth, and the fact that with the time period this book is in, you can make a lot of prequels AND sequels, which I hope are like this book. All-in-all it's a good read, so I would recommend this book to people who don't even prefer sci-Fi.