Time Machine series

The Time Machine series of science fiction stories for children, published between 1959 and 1989 in Boys' Life magazine, featured a group of American Boy Scouts who acquire an abandoned time machine. The Polaris Patrol visited the future and the past, sometimes recruiting new Scouts. The stories used the time machine as a framework for history lessons, but also explored the consequences of having a time machine (as well as the various technologies the boys who discovered it obtain from the future).^[1]

The author was given as Donald Keith for most of the stories, a pseudonym for the father-and-son team of Donald and Keith Monroe. In later years, some stories were credited just to the son, Keith Monroe.^[2]

The first story in the series was "The Day We Explored the Future," appearing in the December 1959 Boys' Life on page 18.^[3]

Some of the stories were collected in two books, Mutiny in the Time Machine (1963) and Time Machine to the Rescue (1967), with Donald Keith given as the author.

All the Time Machine stories are available from Google Books in its collection of Boys' Life issues.

Recurring characters

• Bob Tucker, patrol leader
• Ellsworth "Brains" Baynes, brilliant bookworm who operates the Machine
• Kai Beezee Tentroy, recruited from a city called Troy in 4000 A.D.
• Dion, recruited from ancient Sparta
• Rodney Carver, impetuous Tenderfoot

Bibliography

Stories in Boys' Life

In the following table, "DK" indicates that the story's author is given as Donald Keith, while "KM" means attribution to Keith Monroe. Links are to the copies available at Google Books.

Month	Year	Title	Byline	Serial dates
DEC	1959	The Day We Explored the Future	DK
FEB	1960	The Time Machine Flies Backwards	DK
JUN	1960	How We Got the Mind-Reading Pills	DK
JUL	1960	Our Time Machine at the Jamboree	DK
OCT	1961	Marco Polo and Our Time Machine	DK
FEB	1962	The Time Machine Slips a Cog	DK
DEC	1962	Mutiny in the Time Machine Part 1	DK	Dec 1962 to Mar 1963 (4-part serial)
Jan	1963	Mutiny in the Time Machine Part 2	DK	Dec 1962 to Mar 1963 (4-part serial)
Feb	1963	Mutiny in the Time Machine Part 3	DK	Dec 1962 to Mar 1963 (4-part serial)
Mar	1963	Mutiny in the Time Machine Part 4	DK	Dec 1962 to Mar 1963 (4-part serial)
JUN	1964	The Time Machine Cracks a Safe	DK
OCT	1964	Time Machine to the Rescue	DK
FEB	1965	The Time Machine Gets Stuck	DK	Feb 1965 to Apr 1965 (3-part serial)
APR	1967	The Time Machine Hunts a Treasure	DK	Apr 1967 to Jun 1967 (3-part serial)
DEC	1968	The Dog from the Time Machine	DK
SEP	1970	The Time Machine and the Generation Gap	DK
AUG	1971	The King and the Time Machine	DK
FEB	1973	The Time Machine Cleans Up	DK
AUG	1973	The Time Machine Twins the Jamboree	KM
DEC	1973	Santa Claus and the Time Machine	DK
NOV	1974	The Time Machine Fights Earthquakes	KM
APR	1975	The Time Machine Saves a Patriot	KM
JUL	1976	The Time Machine Kidnaps a Parade	KM
SEP	1988	Target Timbuktu	KM
FEB	1989	Why We Kidnapped Our Scoutmaster	KM
SEP	1989	Pirates Took Our Time Machine	KM

Books

• Donald Keith (author) (1963). Mutiny in the Time Machine. Random House.
• Donald Keith (author) (1967). Time Machine to the Rescue. illustrated by Albert Orbaan. Putnam.

References

1. The Time Machine stories in BOYS' LIFE, 1959-1989, by planettom. March 4, 2011. (Includes synopses of the stories.) Accessed March 31, 2011
2. Paging through BOYS' LIFE, Part 1: Donald Keith's Time Machine Stories, by William S. Higgins. March 14, 2010. Accessed March 31, 2011.
3. Keith, Donald (December 1959). The Day We Explored the Future. Boys' Life. Boy Scouts of America. Retrieved 2010-07-05.

External links

• 2008 discussion of science fiction stories in Boy's Life