Kid with watch, saves day. Story at 11.

June 26, 2012 10:41 AM

Merlin amazed by a digital watch! Help me remember a book I read as a kid! Normal guy gets zapped to fantasy other world/past.

I read this probably in the early to mid 90s, so it could be from anytime before that.

The protagonist seemed to be an every man.

Somehow he is transported to a different world/back in time to a medieval setting. I THINK it might have been King Arthur and Merlin, but it may have just been generic king and magicians.

I believe it was the standard trope of the outsider everyman come to save a people as prophesied.

I remember the one part, the every man was completely not buying the prophesy but the power of time or whatever was the fact that he had a digital watch. His vague understanding of scientific theories and principles (relativity?), was some sort of insight/power.

The mighty magician character mentioned something like how even a shlub from our world, knew all these amazing and "mystical" things.

I kinda devoured books back then as a kid. It could be anything from a scholastic, to something I found at a library. SLIGHTLY possible it was in a magazine like Asimovs but I'm pretty sure it was a novel.

posted by PlutoniumX to Media & Arts (18 answers total)

Not quite, but perhaps "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court"?
posted by HuronBob at 10:44 AM on June 26, 2012

Could it have been the movie tie-in to A Kid in King Arthur's Court?

There are a few other options it could be, as time traveling kid goes to the middle ages was my favorite 90s book trope and there were a bunch of them. I'll do some more searching for you.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 11:03 AM on June 26, 2012

Response by poster: PhoBWanKenobi - I don't think it was that. But I did eat up that trope back then.

I didn't really read many novelizations/tie in books, besides what I recall as the most excellent "Bill and Teds Bogus Journey" which I got from scholastic book club and remember it being better than the movie.

I want to say it was a more "mature" YA book, if it was YA at all. But then again, who knows what I was thinking as a kid/teen.
posted by PlutoniumX at 11:15 AM on June 26, 2012

Other options: Edward Eager had two books which feature kids traveling back to the middle ages, Half-Magic, and Knight's Castle. Knight's Castle was explicitly modeled on Ivanhoe and also featured a toy castle coming to life. Half-Magic was more directly playing with "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court," though only for one chapter. Oh, and I think his book Seven-day Magic features time travel of some medievalish sort, too. You might also look into the works of E. Nesbit, because I think she had some plots along these lines. But all were published in the 50s, and Half-Magic takes place around the turn of the century, which makes the watch bit unlikely.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 11:17 AM on June 26, 2012

Might it have been Max and Me and the Time Machine?
posted by namewithoutwords at 11:22 AM on June 26, 2012

There's something similar in Stephen King's The Waste Lands, where Jake meets the Tick-Tock Man.
posted by xedrik at 11:23 AM on June 26, 2012

I think I remember the book, if not the name. Did it involve someone being trapped in an oak tree? And Merlin having some kind of school for gifted/psychic people?
posted by Solomon at 11:35 AM on June 26, 2012

Was there something about him using urine on a wound to sterilize it?
posted by MsMolly at 11:45 AM on June 26, 2012

Ok, I think the one I was thinking of is The Dragon Knight. Since that's probably not it, you might find other suggestions in TVTropes' Fish Out of Temporal Water page.
posted by MsMolly at 11:51 AM on June 26, 2012

Was it The Warlock in Spite of Himself by Christopher Stasheff?
posted by batmonkey at 12:07 PM on June 26, 2012 [1 favorite]

I was thinking about Edward Eager, too. This rings a very faint bell for me. I can check at home tonight.
posted by Stacey at 12:18 PM on June 26, 2012

The Giving Radio to the Romans page on TVTropes mentions this Terry Pratchett short story:

In Terry Pratchett's short story Once and Future a time traveler called Mervin finds himself not only trapped in the past, but in a past that never existed; the Anachronism Stew that was King Arthur's time. Working as a doctor for a village in Sir Ector's demenses, he quickly realises that what they need is a great and noble leader, gimmicks up an electromagnet to hold a sword in a stone, and waits for a candidate whose body language suggests he's sensible enough to take advice. It works, although not quite how he expected.

It looks like it was available in a couple of different short story collections. Might be a possibility?
posted by MsMolly at 12:53 PM on June 26, 2012

Not a book, but there was a 2-part MacGyver episode from 1991 with that theme.
posted by hyperizer at 1:52 PM on June 26, 2012

Was it (god help me for having read a large stack of these in their day) Spellsinger?
posted by Zed at 1:59 PM on June 26, 2012

Not quite, but perhaps "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court"?

You know, I think Mark Twain would have been pretty amazed by a digital watch, too...

I came to say Half Magic. This sounds vaguely familiar to me--I wasn't really into King Arthur-type fantasy books as a kid, but I did read Half Magic, so that would be my tentative guess.
posted by phunniemee at 2:10 PM on June 26, 2012 [1 favorite]

Half Magic (what a great book!) was published in 1954, and digital watches apparently weren't invented till 1970, so not that one.
posted by Perodicticus potto at 4:21 PM on June 26, 2012

Something in your description resonated with me. I think it's from a 'Choose Your Own Adventure' book called The Outlaws of Sherwood Forest
posted by guessthis at 1:21 AM on June 27, 2012

Response by poster: Some of these are close, but I don't think any of those are it. It definitely wasn't "kidsy", and I am pretty sure the time traveler was alone.

But wow the memories!

Max and Me and the Time Machine, I bet money I've read that. It sounds vaguely familiar. The cover and title alone would have been an irresistible force in grade school for me.

The TV Tropes Page lead me to add a few things to my amazon wish list, so this question pays off in that at least!

The two part MacGyver episodes are on Netflix Streaming. I got maybe 6 minutes in. Man I loved that show as a kid too!

Spellsinger sounds close as well.
posted by PlutoniumX at 6:42 AM on June 27, 2012