(Found) Ball lightning / energy storm in desert transports man to different world

[Jc91]

I read this around 2003-2006. I found it in my school library.

As far as I know it was a standalone novel, with no sequels.

The world / place this guy gets transported to (possibly time travel? I don't remember much) has a sort of medieval setting. He helps the people there do something or other, and eventually gets transported back to where he left from by a similar phenomenon. I most specifically remember the beginning, and a desert or rocky place and some energy based thing transporting the guy.

 

[sueelleker]

The Transall Saga? The Transall Saga

 

[Jc91]

I've been trying to figure this out on and off for years. Thank you!

 

[otistdog]

FYI to future searchers, John Christopher wrote a series with a similar premise, starting with Fireball (1981).

 

[Ravensquawk]

Oh, I know it's already been answered, but I am jonesing to get in my two bits anyway.

Damm this story.
"Goldfish Bowl" by Robert Heinlein.

It's gonna haunt my days and nights forever.
And I have the decades of it happening to prove it.

If you ever get troubled by a scientist who was abducted by an electromagnetic fireball, and asks his colleague who joins him in the featureless zoo prison how he got there, and the reply is: "I came up the Kanaka Pillar", you know this is the one.

"Creation took eight days."
Good luck with forgetting it.
Bwaahhhaaahhahahahhhaha!