One of the tricks of being able to identify lost book titles

is knowing what sort of books pop up frequently. If you have the knack, you can get the right book even if every specific detail in the description is incorrect, which I've done before, thank you.

If a query asks for a chapter book with a lot of fantastical, vaguely steampunkish drawings, they mean The Edge Chronicles. Blue light in the desert is The Transall Saga. Virtual reality game that controls society? Epic. If they mention time slowing down in the basement it's Marco's Millions, if they mention eyeballs it's The Beasties, if they mention little creatures like bugs with weird customs it's The Boxes - actually, let's just say that there's a decent chance that if it could possibly be a Sleator book it is a Sleator book and you should just link his bibliography all over the place.

If they ask for a book and at any point mention the words "virtual war", then the book they are looking for is called Virtual War. It is most definitely not Ender's Game. (It's never Ender's Game, though there's always a comment from somebody who thinks it might be.) Somehow these people always remember the phrase "virtual war", but they never remember to google it. If they did, it'd pop right up for them. They also all think their specific request is very hard to find. It is not.

And now you know!