Wait, What?
A lighthearted, fact-checked tour through the wild claims about the ancient world — from aliens building the pyramids to Atlantis rising next Tuesday. Perfect for history enthusiasts and trivia lovers. Free to read.
Most chapters end with a terrible cartoon drawn by your truly. You can check them all out in here if that's how you roll. I assure you no intelligence, artificial or otherwise, was involved in their creation!
Table of Contents
Chapters are in rough chronological order, starting with events closest to us, to the furthest.
Why I wrote this
I've spent the better part of a decade writing novels set in the ancient world — from Egypt to Mesopotamia in The Whispers of Atlantis, Cleopatra's rise and fall in The Last Pharaoh, Spartacus' long road from Thracian soldier to rebel general in the Spartacus Rebellion, and a tale of vengeance against the backdrop of Hannibal's war against Rome in The Greatest Enemy. That means a lot of hours with Herodotus, Plutarch, Livy, Dio, Strabo, and every archaeology paper I can get my hands on.
And every time I surfaced, my feed was full of the same "interesting" myths. At some point I stopped rolling my eyes and started writing things down. Many chapters later, I had a book.
Wait, What? is my attempt to take the wild theories seriously — just long enough to see what the actual evidence says. It's lighthearted, fact-filled, and (I hope) funny in places. No finger-wagging. Just: here's the claim, here's what we know, and here's why the truth is almost always stranger than the meme. Rather than keep it locked behind a paywall, I've put it all out here for free. If you prefer a book format or want to gift it to someone, please consider buying it.
One more thing. Most chapters end with a terrible cartoon, hand-drawn by yours truly. No AI was harmed — or employed — in their creation. I promise nothing about the art. I promise everything about the effort.
— Jay
