"Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Card

Ender Wiggin is a child genius recruited into a program to develop children into starship battle commanders, to fight a war against an alien race, the Formics, otherwise referred to colloquially as the "buggers". The novel follows his experiences at the battle school, where he develops into the star pupil, attracting the jealousy of some of his classmates. He eventually graduates from battle school and is provided final training at command school where he leads a group of his more friendly, talented classmates in battle simulations against the buggers. He completes the final training challenge where it is revealed the "simulations" were in fact real battles fought against the real enemy via remote control, and that the war is over and Ender is responsible for the genocide of the buggers.

On a positive note, the story is generally interesting; the exploration into the psychology of military school training and the art of war is fascinating (I guess I can see why this is a recommended text for the USMC (along with "Starship Troopers" by Robert Heinlein)). Card's writing style provides a good pace to the novel, keeps the reader engaged and makes the book generally very easy to read. From this perspective I can see why "Ender's Game" has been typically voted the best science fiction novel of all-time for it's popular appeal.

On a negative note the characters are generally nothing special. Ender is uncomfortably likeable at the best of times but generally annoying at the worst (particularly towards the end of the book in his despair after his revelation). Other characters are generally two-dimensional. There are some interesting essays criticising Card's supposed justification for the violent actions of some of his characters (see Elaine Radford's review, "Ender and Hitler: Sympathy for the Superman" and John Kessel's essay "Creating the Innocent Killer: Ender's Game, Intention, and Morality"). These focus around the assertion that Card appears to be trying to convince the reader that intentions, and only intentions, rather than actions or consequences, are morally-judgeable.

Overall "Ender's Game" is a very entertaining read, and should be on every sci-fi lovers reading list, if at least for being in-the-know.