SF & Fantasy Author, US Military Vet, Gamer, Husband, & Father
Colorado Springs, Colorado
Joined February 2015
- Tweets1.7K
- Following168
- Followers757
- Likes8.1K
Kal Spriggs retweeted
One week left on the kickstarter!
kickstarter.com/projects/hdm…
Kal Spriggs retweeted
The Based Book Sale is live!
Sooooo many books, each of them cheap, some of them free. As for me, Exile War: The Final Boxed Set is in there. This is every last Exile War story ever published. Get in there, choose the very best, and use CTRL-F to find mine too! More in comments.
Kal Spriggs retweeted
The Gun Runner graphic novel kickstarter is live - kickstarter.com/projects/hdm…
Kal Spriggs retweeted
Problem:
Years later someone who was a big fan of the book made from these experiments went to try to follow it up.
They found one of the graduate students still alive.
He debunked the entire thing. He had found it very pleasant and left when he was ready.
The entire thing, like most famous leftist 'studies' was a complete fake. The doctor behind it made it up whole cloth.
Together with movies like 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' it created the hoax narrative of widespread abuse that in turn led to closing mental hospitals which in turn led to people being stabbed on the street by random homeless people.
So, yeah, keep pushing the debunked narrative. That's a great idea.
In 1973, eight perfectly healthy people walked into different psychiatric hospitals across the United States. They were not ill. Yet no one inside those walls was able to see it.
It was an experiment. One of the most disturbing experiments in the history of psychiatry. Designed by psychologist David Rosenhan, it began with a simple yet unsettling question: is it really possible to reliably distinguish mental health from mental illness?
To find out, Rosenhan recruited eight pseudopatients. They were ordinary people: a painter, a housewife, a pediatrician, a graduate student. They lied about only one thing—they claimed to hear voices. Nothing more. No bizarre behavior, no crises, just three words heard in their minds: “empty,” “hollow,” “thud.”
All of them were admitted. And immediately afterward, they stopped pretending. They behaved normally. They cooperated. They asked to be discharged. It wasn’t possible.
The staff no longer saw people, but diagnoses. Every action was reinterpreted through the lens of illness: writing notes? Obsessive behavior. Standing in the hallway? Pathological attention-seeking. Being polite? Controlled behavior consistent with the disorder.
Seven of them were labeled schizophrenic. One was diagnosed as manic-depressive. Not a single one was recognized as healthy. Not one.
But the real patients noticed. Some approached and whispered, “You’re not like the others. You don’t belong here.” They saw what the experts could not recognize.
The average length of hospitalization was 19 days. One person remained hospitalized for 52 days. Each passing day confirmed the same truth: the label was more powerful than reality.
When Rosenhan published his study—On Being Sane in Insane Places—it caused an earthquake. The psychiatric community erupted in outrage. One hospital challenged Rosenhan to send new pseudopatients, confident they would expose them. He accepted. In the following months, the hospital identified 41 supposed impostors. But Rosenhan had sent no one. No one at all.
The truth was now undeniable: diagnoses were not always based on facts, but on context. Once labeled, a person became a prisoner of that narrative. Even if they were sane. Even if they protested the truth.
This experiment shattered blind trust in clinical labels. It led to major reforms in the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness. But above all, it left a haunting and still relevant lesson:
Perception can distort reality more than madness itself.
And often, the most dangerous illusion is not that of those considered insane, but of those who believe they are always right.
Eight healthy people entered psychiatric hospitals in 1973. They came out carrying a truth the world could no longer ignore.
Kal Spriggs retweeted
So far as American MSM is concerned, the Good Guy With A Gun does not exist. He is a fiction. A phantom. He must be denied. He breaks the narrative. To admit that the Good Guy With A Gun has disrupted or stopped a lethal crime is to admit the unthinkable: armed, responsible citizens are a net benefit to society.
Jordan Salinas is a hero. However, not one major US News site even mentions him. Local news has him. Several sites based in India mention him. UK sites mention him. But, not any of the major US news sites.
You do not hate the media anywhere near enough.
ktvb.com/article/news/crime/…
Kal Spriggs retweeted
What is happening in Ceuta isn't immigration, it's the invasion & pillaging of a city. I have thoughts on that.
ornerydragon.com/2026/07/31/…
Kal Spriggs retweeted
I HAVE THE MONDAY TRIBUTE!
Every Indie Author, comic creator, video maker, streamer, and musician is the hero they want to see in the world.
So drop your links in the comments.
Showcase your covers!
Find your new favorite!
Hail the Indie faithful!
Kal Spriggs retweeted
Are you sick of unsatisfying modern entertainment?
If you're looking for books without any surprises or unwanted ideologies, we have a small but growing catalog of indie books for you. Although we started out as sci-fi and fantasy, we're adding other genres.
On this platform, we offer a way to match your tasts to the types of books you really want and special pricing tags on the latest deals to save you money.
Leave reviews, chat with other readers and authors, and become part of a growing community of book lovers and independent creators at Spotlight on Indie.
Join this FREE platform for indie based books today!
spotlightonindie.com
Kal Spriggs retweeted
IT'S RELEASE DAAAAAAAY!!! 💙🎉💙🎉
“TEMPERED BY FIRE” by @MelissaOlthoff (Trade Paperback) – Fans of Anne McCaffrey will be thrilled with this Epic Fantasy!
You can do everything right . . . and still lose.
Harper Tavros always dreamed of being a dragon rider. But after a prank went horribly wrong—or right—she ended up bonded to an utterly ridiculous and insanely brave griffin instead. A bond that can only be broken in death. Together, Harper and Felix graduated the Tennessan Bonded Training Academy and proved themselves during their first six months on active duty even as the war with Savinia heated up.
Now, every mission is more dangerous than the last.
Griffin riders are the eyes and ears of the Tennessan military, an advantage unmatched ever since their enemy’s griffin riders vanished from the battlefield years ago. So when a dying Savinian griffin shows up at a Tennessan fort, Harper and Felix are dispatched to retrieve the message she carries—a plea for help from Savinia’s last griffin riders.
A plea Tennessan can’t afford to ignore.
Harper and Felix are assigned to the team tasked with unraveling the mystery of Savinia’s griffins. Their mission will take them deep behind enemy lines and into the dreaded Southern Smoke Mountains. After everything goes wrong, Harper and Felix will be pushed to their limits.
When every choice leads into the fire, their only option is to burn . . . and let the flames temper them into something stronger.
baen.com/tempered-by-fire.ht… /3
Kal Spriggs retweeted
Now that the new book platform for based indie books is up and running, it's gaining attention. You may be asking why or even thinking "Finally!"
I did too... I just never imagined that person would be me, but I reached a point that I realized someone had to do something. Since no one else was, I did it.
That something started as Spotlight on Indie SFF. I've been an indie science fiction and fantasy author since a small press published my first book in 2008. In 2009, I started self-publishing and never looked back. In the 2011-2012 era, I was briefly a bestselling author on Amazon. I qualified for SFWA membership but discontinued after a few years.
I have a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and have been a small business owner (still am with Spotlight on Indie, LLC). I've been working as a part-time office manager and conference organizer for a small organization. I know how to manage the minutiae and put it all together!
I've loved sci-fi and fantasy since I was a child (and saw the original Return of the Jedi in the theater when it was first released). Both my kids are big into the genres, which is no surprise since both myself and my husband love speculative fiction.
I am a Christian before all things, a horseperson of over forty years (and still going, although he's mostly a fat pasture-pet), a cat mom, tea lover (not coffee), and mom to two high school valedictorians.
I continue to write and, by the time I finish the last few books of my current series, will have written and published fifty books (mostly novels, but also some novellas and a couple of novelettes).
Spotlight on Indie is the result of several years of wanting to do something for readers and writers of fiction to help with matching the right books to the right readers. I don't like certain things in books and tired of DNFing books, so I developed a system of rating content to help readers find just what they want. I was able to make this vision a reality and opened Spotlight on Indie SFF with the help of an amazing professional website developer. It was a simple site, basic in many ways...
But I continued to ask for little alterations, and then the tools available to my developer improved and we decided it was time to see how big we could get.
All the basic features of the original site are incorporated into the new platform, but we added MUCH more than I ever thought possible, for both readers and authors. Authors submit their books with many more purchase link options than the old site allowed and provide readers with content ratings to help readers determine if a book is right for them, which is the reason for my tagline, The Discerning Reader's Book Resource.
In the upgrade, we added far more tools to help readers create recommendation lists from the available books on the site with the types of themes, tropes, settings, tones, and points-of-view they like.
For authors, we were able to set up books so they have full control and analytics to track activity on each individual book listed on the site. As an author, I know this is invaluable. Authors can now add far more details of their books, and the site also allows for serial fiction to be listed, so that writers with serialized stories on sites like Royal Road, Substack, or their own blogs can participate in gaining an audience.
We also created the platform as a place for the indie community to connect with one another by including a forum and the ability to rate and review each book.
I put in the money to make this happen, the culmination of a lifetime of loving books and nearly as long writing them. The goal is to build a catalog that connects readers with exactly the types of stories from the indie community that they want to find; but the books must be based--no modern ideologies. I and my moderators curate the catalog of stories by giving each submission a background check to be sure it's a good fit.
Whether you're a self-published author or small press, we're all part of the indie community. Sign-up today!
spotlightonindie.com
Kal Spriggs retweeted
Today is the day!
Head on over to spotlightonindie.com to find your next favorite book without unwanted surprises! Free for authors and free for readers.
Our unique content ratings and vibes & themes facets assigned by authors are matched to reader preferences through a short survey, providing instant recommendations so you never have to guess if the content of a book is right for you!
As our catalog grows, so will the selection of books matched to your tastes.
Right now, our catalog is focused on science fiction and fantasy from our original site, but the new platform is open to all based fiction, so spread the news and invite other indie authors of based books to join today!
Kal Spriggs retweeted
Today, for my birthday, my wish is that all of you would buy one book, for $0.99, from our poor beleaguered sale.
Make some author's day!
basedbooksale.substack.com/
Kal Spriggs retweeted
Congratulations to all the great indie authors who have published their work! Completing the story is more than most people who say they want to write a book will ever do.
Finding the audience is the next task. I don't promise anything if you list your book, but my site is free for authors, readers, and reviewers and I do put my money on the line to try to connect to readers. (Although I do have a donation option to help out.)
The site is limited to based indie (self and small press published by my definition) sci-fi and fantasy. I research the books and authors (if I'm not already aware of their cultural leanings) to keep out "the message" (aka modern nonsense). Readers can rest assured that books are curated in that.
(Google AI is great for my research--it loves to prop up exactly the ideas I reject.)
Kal Spriggs retweeted
IT'S ALIIIIIIVE!
"Smuggling Spaces," six tales of the intrepid crew of the Inquisitive Tamandua, is available in paperback on Amazon. It includes a new story wherein they smuggle miniature multicolored glow-in-the-dark capybaras. WACKY FUN, as Wash would say.
Beagles
And dragons
And bears
OH MY
Russell Fisk, the owner/operator of the interplanetary tramp freighter Inquisitive Tamandua, really hates transporting live cargo. But when money’s tight and jobs are hard to find, he’ll take what he can get.
Sometimes the client's paperwork is iffy. Sometimes the live cargo is unpredictable. And sometimes the dead cargo is even more unpredictable.
Whether the meerkats are engaged in a blood feud, the graveyard is haunted, or the miniature multicolored glow-in-the-dark capybaras might spontaneously combust, Russ has one simple (ha) mission:
Getting his cargo and crew from Point A to Point B in one piece, while staying a step ahead of the feds.
Link in the comments!
Kal Spriggs retweeted
Someone I know is battling breast cancer, so a bunch of her friends donated things for a charity auction. I threw in a big box of autographed books. (I didn't have everything in the same format, but I think that's all of MHI and a bunch of other stuff too)
It's over on the other social media page if you'd like to place a bid-
facebook.com/photo?fbid=1221…
Kal Spriggs retweeted
Watch Starship's twelfth flight test teapaw.org/i/broadcasts/1pKkOykQR…
Kal Spriggs retweeted
eARC Alert!
We are so excited to announce that our newest author @GameOverStation's first Baen Book, One-Fifth Dragon is now available as an eARC!!!
One-Fifth Dragon by Shami Stovall
DRAGONS, ASSASSINS, AND NINJAS!
By a Baen Fantasy and Adventure Finalist and Indie Star
Cover by Dungeons and Dragons artist Todd Lockwood
They call themselves my found family, but they slaughtered my kin. Now, I will pay back the murderers in blood tenfold.
Their ruin is a mirror they polished themselves. They took me as a child and hammered me into a weapon.
They taught me the art of disappearing: how to slip through a room like a shadow at noon, how to dress a face in lies until no one recognizes the man beneath. They taught the small, hands-on cruelties: how to hide poison, how to slit a throat before the man can make a noise.
Most dangerous of all . . . they taught me patience. They taught me to never quit until the job was completed.
So let them sleep in their castles and whisper of safety. Let them keep their cleverness and secrets. I already know their sins. When darkness comes—and it will—I will be the thing beneath the floorboards, the breath on their necks, the quiet that becomes the scream. I will return what they took, multiplied by the cruelty they practiced.
Their hands built the blade.
Their choices sharpened it.
Their blood will be the prize.
To learn more, go to: simonandschuster.com/books/O…
To get the eARC, go to: baen.com/one-fifth-dragon-ea… (remember, this eARC is only available until release day, August 4, 2026)
#BaenBooks #eARC #ShamiStovall #ToddLockwood
