We find out that a young boy named Ender is chosen to save the world from bug.gers - being only a a six-year-old boy and having his monitor removed that allowed the government to see the world through his eyes. He is bullied at school and decides to confront his bully and he hurts him, however after giving proper reasons for that, it turns out it was just a test, and he is admitted into Battle School where he is to be trained to become a commander. He is constantly tormented by feeling that he is the same as his cruel brother Peter, when in fact he is half Peter, half his gentle sister - which is exactly the reason why he was chosen to become a commander. He is transferred to the Salamander Army where he befriends Petra Arkanian who helps him train, however, the commander Bonzo Madrid hates him and transfers him to the Rat Army. A couple of years go by, and he becomes commander of the Phoenix Army and has his own soldiers to train - however, he starts doubting the system and wants to defeat it. There is a conspiracy against Ender as many students hate him - however, when confronted with them, Ender manages to kill Bonzo although he is unaware of it (just like he is unaware that he killed his bully many years ago).
That's the summary of the first 12 chapters, hope this helps!
by the stock of superlatives the author means the group of people who were superlative or of high post or standard in the audience.
And the sentence means that the person exhausted or astonished the minds of his audience that even the superlatives were surprised by his lecture and was....as said the first after Desmond Tutu in 2008 to get a standing ovation or the highest standard of applause to him.
