When Danny found out his girlfriend Stacy was pregnant he sorta freaked out. They were both recent high school grads who worked 100 hours per week at a local amusement park. Having a baby wasn’t exactly on Danny’s bucket list. 

He asked Stacy to consider a procedure that would fix the problem, and (as expected) she didn’t take it very well. “I’m keeping the baby,” she told him in a huff, “and it’s up to you to decide if you’re gonna stick around and help raise it.” 

At the Lone Star Land Amusement Park, Danny was the foreman for Shock Waves, a herky-jerky rollercoaster with multiple loops that flipped passengers upside down and sideways. Not only was it the scariest ride in the park, it represented exactly the way Danny felt about becoming a teenage parent. He was literally in “shock.”  

But that wasn’t the only symbolic coincidence to slap Danny in the face. An explosion near the amusement park opened a gash in the earth that released all sorts of nightmarish monsters. There were so many of them climbing to the surface that the ground seemed to move. “Thousands of limbs, clicked, clacked and scratched,” wrote author Matt Kurtz. “Their musky scent, an acrid stench like ammonia and rotting fish, rode the wind.” 

In a way, it was like Mother Earth was giving birth and her babies were all shapes and sizes. Some had exoskeletons, others coated in scales or leathery skin. They spewed out of the gaping crevasse like a rolling parade of insectoid and reptilian newborn invaders. 

It was an absurd Kafkaesque moment for the young carny. What would he do? Would he run from the “monstrous vermin” (ungeheueres Ungeziefer), or would he stay and face the problem? 

Danny decides to stay. He was afraid of becoming a father, but he instinctively knew that he had to conquer his fears no matter what form they took. Like it or not, he would have to overcome ticks the size of rats, ants the size of Chihuahuas and crabs the size of rhinos before he could fully commit to raising a child of his own.

Shock Waves is exactly the sort of novel that hits my sweet spot. I love monsters and I truly lost count of all the monster variants roaming the Lone Star Land Amusement Park. Based on this effort alone, I can tell Kurtz is a generous writer indeed. 

There were a million creatures in Shock Waves, but Kurtz saved his iconic “Big Mama” until the very end. Believe me, this thing was a doozy. The giant mantis-scorpion shredded the scenery like a classic Ray Harryhausen creation. 

When it was all over (hint: it’s never really over), Danny, Stacy and all of the survivors take a moment to reflect on what just happened. The carnage they witnessed didn’t represent the insignificance of life (as Franz Kafka might suggest). Instead, it emphasized the profound power of existence and the struggle it takes to define oneself.  

[Shock Waves / By Matt Kurtz / First Printing: April 2023 / ISBN: 9788377005629]