Hellboy: A Plague of Wasps [Dramatized Adaptation]

by Christopher Golden

Hellboy has accompanied his girlfriend, Anastasia Bransfield, on a trip to Brazil to help colleagues who are conducting an archaeological dig in the jungle. While they're having coffee, a colleague arrives...through a public square, sick and sluggish and in agony. He falls, and wasps begin to come out of his mouth. When he bursts open, more wasps emerge--his insides are full of a labyrinthine, gray, papery nest. It becomes clear that something sinister and supernatural is at play here. This Original Dramatized Audiobook continues the story from HELLBOY IN LOVE. Written exclusively for GraphicAudio and produced with a full cast of actors, immersive sound effects and cinematic music! Performed by Jasmine Hyde, Scott McCormick, Stewart Crank, Carolla Parmejano, Sebastian Zancanaro, Peter Holdway, Kay Eluvian, Bia Borin, Vinicius Faria Zinn, Stephanie Nemeth-Parker, and Eric Messner.

Genres: Horror, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Fiction, Audiobook

6 pages, Audiobook

Published July 11, 2023

About the author

CHRISTOPHER GOLDEN is the New York Times bestselling, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of such novels as Road of Bones, Ararat, Snowblind, Of Saints and Shadows, and Red Hands. With Mike Mignola, he is the co-creator of the Outerverse comic book universe, including such series as Baltimore, Joe Golem: Occult Detective, and Lady Baltimore. As an editor, he has worked on the short story anthologies Seize the Night, Dark Cities, and The New Dead, among others, and he has also written and co-written comic books, video games, screenplays, and a network television pilot. Golden co-hosts the podcast Defenders Dialogue with horror author Brian Keene. In 2015 he founded the popular Merrimack Valley Halloween Book Festival. He was born and raised in Massachusetts, where he still lives with his family. His work has been nominated for the British Fantasy Award, the Eisner Award, and multiple Shirley Jackson Awards. For the Bram Stoker Awards, Golden has been nominated ten times in eight different categories. His original novels have been published in more than fifteen languages in countries around the world. Please visit him at www.christophergolden.com

Reviews

[Lukasz · Rating 4 out of 5]

You don’t need a PhD in “Mignolaverse” to enjoy Hellboy: A Plague of Wasps, penned by Christopher Golden and performed by a full cast in Graphic Audio’s signature “movie in your mind” style. The production quality is extraordinary, and the story is easy to follow even for newcomers.

Golden’s script is full of the dark humor and folklore-heavy weirdness that Hellboy fans love. There’s also excellent body horror here. That said, the action can sometimes feel a bit repetitive. Still, A Plague of Wasps delivers exactly what you’d want from Hellboy: supernatural slugfests, wisecracks, and the occasional moment of heartfelt introspection. Worth a listen for fans of the big red guy.

[Luna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm testing audible, and got to listen to this incredible story.

It was a wild ride... I felt sick and scared, but the nook still got some laughs and sighsout of me when Anastasia and Hellboy were talking...

I thoroughly recommend.

It's really well acted, has several voice actors doing the darnest, beautiful ambiance and sound effects, all giving life to an incredible haunting story. I love Hellboy — I had a very formative experience with the Guillermo Del Toro's duology, and this really pulled some strings.

It's set in Brazil, and had some Portuguese dialogue, which was definitely not written by a native, considering how good the English dialogue is in comparison. Being a native, though, I enjoyed it too much for my own good. It's clunky sometimes, but very cool.

If you don't speak the language, don't worry. It mostly adds to the immersion. You won't miss anything for not speaking Portuguese — you might actually relate to Hellboy.

I still have a few Hellboy books I'd like to "read" (listen to). If they're all like this, I'm'na have a blast.


Soon I'll be getting my copy of Perfect Union, which is good, considering that this has a similar plot from what I can gauge — just wasps instead of bees. Listening to it (and playing RDR2, but that's very beyond the point) made the gutworms writhe in a craving fit.

Might be a good combo for anyone looking insect horror vibes. The jungle, supernatural evil itch gas also been scratched.

Another random comment: very good audiobook for ETS 2 / ATS 2 nightly drives, and probably the real thing too. I got to enjoy it on a bus, and the book just fits with the road.

[Kumar K · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hellboy stories, at the end of the day, are the titular character exploring a locale, some supernatural incidents, and coming across a cryptid in the end. In this story, Hellboy has a girlfriend, some colorful characters that are written well for, what is essentially, a creature feature. On paper, this narrative has such a high body count that it should come across very miserable. But the performances are excellent, and the narration from Hellboy's girlfriend's perspective is a stroke of genius. It ends up rolling out really well.

To some, the girlfriend's narration has too much pontification about him, making her sound too lovesick, but I looked at it as a character who wants to share much more about others than she did about herself.

Still, one improvement would have been to have her rant baout him a couple of times: Hellboy IS quick to anger, and he is old fashioned. I find it unrealistic that she would have no complaints.

[Gilbert Stack · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hellboy goes to the Amazon to spend some time with his girlfriend and instead ends up fighting a supernatural plague of giant wasps. It’s an exciting story, with the tension built expertly by Christopher Golden. Hellboy is stung early on and the reader just knows that something supernaturally bad is happening to him as a result.

Great as the story is, however, the real joy in this story comes from the excellent audio dramatization.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

Between this, The Queen and Bug Wars, I apparently can't get enough of wasps this year.
I usually like Golden's Hellboy stories, but maybe due to the Audio-drama style of this, it felt very railroaded and narrow. I also generally dislike Hellboy in romance scenarios, especially when they're with people he saved as literal babies, so I might have been a little predisposed not to like this a ton. " 'Statia" is not my favourite character

[Oleg X · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hellboy doing Hellboy shit: The full-cast audiobook.

Голос Хеллбоя не лучший, но либо я со временем привык, либо актер освоился, но ощущение, что его искусственно углубили, исчезло где-то к середине.

Фамилию профессора Бруттенхольма произносят *очень* странно, из нее больше половины букв исчезли.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Been awhile since i heard anything about hellboy, and this story was nice. A grounded tale about a demon guy battling wasps in the jungle. The audio drama was top notch. Will gladly read more in this series

[Derrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

GA did an amazing job! I am not a Hellboy fan, but was willing to give it a try since GA did it. Always! It was an interesting/different story, but honestly, I enjoyed it for the most part because of the Actors. Great job.

[Tamara✨ · Rating 4 out of 5]

EEEE DO NOT READ IF FLYING BUGS AND BODY HORROR FREAKS YOU OUT!!!! But also you probably wouldn't bother with Hellboy in general if that were the case.. Love to see Hellboy have a romantic life and not be all gloom and doom.

[Marissa Coulton · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story was entertaining enough, but would be even better to have the graphic novel images to view alongside the audio. (The artwork of the Hellboy series are always great)

[Kyle · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best 'Boy (in any medium)!

[Hailey Snider · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was more fun than I expected. Going to look for more!

[Grey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Objectively 3 ⭐ but the full cast audio really elevated it

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

An all around very solid Hellboy adventure. The full voice cast is excellent, as is the sound effects and design. Some great body horror around the titular plague of wasps tossed in for good measure.

[Michael Vandenberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

An enjoyable break from reality

[Terrence · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, an enjoyable Hellboy adventure. I will listen to the remaining Graphic Audio adaptations of Hellboy.

[Julei · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 GA did a great job with this!

[Ethan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Too woke. This book spends it time complaining about colonialism and insulting men.

[Cloak88 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Never read a Hellboy book before,... I'm not disappointed.

Hellboy accompanies his girlfriend Anastasia Bransfield to Brazil where she is to help out at an archaeological dig-site. Problems start however when the project runs into trouble and people start disappearing,... and then reappearing with their insides changed to wasp-nest husks.

Oke I got to be honest. I'm not a fan of wasps, and this is a horror novel. This was genuinely scary in a slow creeping inevitable horror sense of the word. Well done author and well done voice actors.

A horror/ fantasy story, that gave me quite a bit of inspiration for my upcoming D&D campaign.

[Matthew Parody · Rating 5 out of 5]

A lovely Hellboy in Love story.

Very interesting and visceral.