Time Machine series

Time Machine series
Error creating thumbnail: File missing Illustration by Charles Hawes for The Day We Explored the Future
Owner	Boys' Life
Created	1959

The Time Machine series of science fiction stories for young adults, 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).

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.

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

Some of the stories were collected in two books: Mutiny in the Time Machine and Time Machine to the Rescue, with Donald Keith listed 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 (often the story narrator)
• 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, an impetuous tenderfoot

Stories in Boys' Life

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

Issue	Title	Author	Serial dates
December 1959		DK
February 1960		DK
June 1960		DK
July 1960		DK
October 1961		DK
February 1962		DK
December 1962		DK	Dec 1962 to Mar 1963 (4-part serial)
January 1963		DK	Dec 1962 to Mar 1963 (4-part serial)
February 1963		DK	Dec 1962 to Mar 1963 (4-part serial)
March 1963		DK	Dec 1962 to Mar 1963 (4-part serial)
June 1964		DK
October 1964		DK
February 1965		DK	Feb 1965 to Apr 1965 (3-part serial)
March 1965		DK	Feb 1965 to Apr 1965 (3-part serial)
April 1965		DK	Feb 1965 to Apr 1965 (3-part serial)
April 1967		DK	Apr 1967 to Jun 1967 (3-part serial)
May 1967		DK	Apr 1967 to Jun 1967 (3-part serial)
June 1967		DK	Apr 1967 to Jun 1967 (3-part serial)
December 1968		DK
September 1970		DK
August 1971		DK
February 1973		DK
August 1973		KM
December 1973		DK
November 1974		KM
April 1975		KM
July 1976		KM
September 1988		KM
February 1989		KM
September 1989		KM

See also

• The Time Machine
• The Disappearing Man and Other Mysteries
• The Key Word and Other Mysteries