Authors A. J. Hartley, L. Jagi Lamplighter, Michael Martinez, Tamsin Silver, Tony Ballard Smoot, and Jean Marie Ward tried to stump contestants, including me, in silentio, with plausible historical scenarios at Dragon Con’s Alternate & Historical Fiction Track (ALT) Saturday at 2:30PM on the ALT YouTube channel. Liz Wang Carpenter moderated and Alison Helfferich and Brett Gordan acted as additional contestants along with the authors not then presenting.

Possible stings or facts included situations surrounding a lost Shakespeare play, medieval fairs, pirate eye patches, a murdered man’s bizarre burial, the protective power of New Orleans jazz, and a presidential election scandal. All seemed so real but only two were fake. One of those, about infamous night-vision-aiding eye patches, was challenged by Hartley (and by me) and the election scandal turned on one particular fact.

All the same, I felt pretty good being right on four and possibly five of the six (if Hartley’s challenge on the pirate eye patch holds up). All I have to say further on the matter is “Arrr!”