Reading Club: Teenage Literature | Vangelis Iliopoulos, Thomas Q.Bit. A Traveler in the Speculum of Time

In November, the SNFCC Teenagers’ Book Club continues its meetings, facilitated by comic book artist and translator Thanasis Petrou. Books of his include: Giannoulis Halepas. The Myth of Modern Greek Sculpture (on a script by Dimitris Vanellis, Patakis Publishers, 2019); The Corpse (on a script by Tassos Zafiriadis and Yannis Palavos,  Jemma Press); At the Battle of Marathon (Patakis Publishers, 2015).

The book we will be reading together this month is Thomas Q.Bit. A Traveler in the Speculum of Time by Vangelis Iliopoulos. 30 Book Club members, aged 12 to 16, take a cue from this delightful sci-fi comic book and engage in conversation, creating and discovering new worlds through the book's pages.

Don't worry if you haven't been able to read the entire book, or if you’ve missed our previous meeting. Each month, the Book Club facilitator, Thanasis Petrou, will be giving us a new cue, announcing the book that we will all be reading together over the weeks to follow. At the end of the month, the group of people who have read the book (or at least half of it) will be meeting to exchange thoughts, impressions, feelings and concerns, triggered by what we have just read, whether we liked it a lot or not so much.
 

The plot

Thomas, a high school student, is constantly in front of a screen, every day, all day, mostly playing war games on his computer. His friends at school call him Q.Bit.
When he provocatively hacks into the biggest gaming company, his adventures begin. He is arrested by the police, but convinces the company to let him join a secret experimental team. His mission will be to test the new game with the code name “I play alone.”

Through the game, Thomas will travel to 1944 Klonari, the home village of his friend Christina during the Nazi occupation.

When Thomas returns to his world, he realizes that he has gained experience none of his peers have. He refuses to even touch any electronic devices, but there are many questions he has trouble finding answers to.

What was that experience he had lived through? Was it a game? Was it an augmented reality situation? Or was it something entirely else?
Did he travel back in time, or did he travel into the future?
What is the meaning of the number 24601?
What does the Nazi occupation have to do with Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, a book Thomas is seeking to find in second-hand bookstores across Athens?

The award-winning book Thomas Q.Bit, A Traveler in the Speculum of Time by Vangelis Iliopoulos (National Award for Adolescence Literary Book 2018) is fascinating from the first to its last page.

The author:

Vangelis Iliopoulos was born in Athens in 1964. He studied Education and Theology. Since 1984, he has been working in private primary education. His career as a writer of children’s and adolescents’ literature began in 1995. Since then, he has written a large number of books that have been highly praised and awarded, many of them also translated and released in Germany, Ireland, Turkey, Korea and elsewhere.

Vangelis Iliopoulos’s book Thomas Q.bit. A Traveler in the Speculum of Time is available (in Greek) by Patakis Publishers.
 

A few words about the Book Club facilitator:

Thanasis Petrou was born in 1971 in Thessaloniki. He studied French Literature in Thessaloniki and Paris, and holds a postgraduate degree in Sociolinguistics. In 2002, he won the first prize in the comic book competition (“New Talents” category) organized by “9” magazine of Eleftherotypia newspaper in collaboration with the AKTO School of Art & Design. From 2002 to 2005, he studied on a scholarship at the Sketch, Comic Book & Cartoon department of AKTO. He has worked as a French teacher, a translator, an illustrator, a musician. From 2005 to 2011, he worked with "9" magazine of Eleftherotypia newspaper. Since 2012, he has been teaching at AKTO. From 2008 to 2022, 16 comic books of his have been published by various publishers, both on scripts of his own and on scripts by other authors (Dimitris Vanellis, Katerina Servi, Pavlos Methenitis, Tassos Zafiriadis, Yannis Palavos et al.). His latest book is: “1923: Hostile Homeland” (Ikaros Books, 2022).

Sunday 27/11
13.00-14.30

ΖΟΟΜ

Up to 30 participants, for children aged 12 to 16
Free admission with online pre-registration

Pre-registration starts on 01/11, at 12.00

To participate in the Reading Club, it is necessary for those who hold a position to have read the book of the month. (It is also useful to have it with them).

Vangelis Iliopoulos’s book Thomas Q.bit. A Traveler in the Speculum of Time is available (in Greek) by Patakis Publishers.

As part of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center's collaboration with the National Library of Greece, the book for the Reading Club has been chosen by NLG staff members.