Ender's Game

Decades after two invasions by an insectoid alien species nearly destroyed humanity, Earth's military breeds and screens its most gifted children to find the commander who can win the next war. Andrew "Ender" Wiggin, a small, brilliant, and unusually empathetic boy, is taken from his family and sent to Battle School, an orbiting academy where children train for war through increasingly ruthless zero-gravity combat games.

Isolated by the adults who need him to be extraordinary, and hunted by rivals who resent his talent, Ender rises through the ranks by out-thinking every opponent, all while fearing he is becoming as cruel as the brother he fled on Earth. As the training grows more punishing and the stakes rise toward the real war with the alien "buggers," Ender is pushed to the edge of what a child can bear.

Ender's Game is a landmark of modern science fiction, winner of both the Hugo and Nebula Awards. A tense, morally complex story about genius, manipulation, and the cost of victory, it remains a defining novel about children shaped into weapons.