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During an interminable rainy spell that saw Lord Byron, his physician Dr. John Polidori, and married couple Percy Bysshe and Mary Shelley fortressed inside a Swiss villa, the need for diversion and entertainment was large. But what to do? Rousing game of charades? Philosophical banter over cups of tea? Key party (oh come on, Byron was there; anything was possible)?

Instead, they shared scary tales and committed them to paper. During that short time, Dr. Polidori wrote The Vampyre, a claustrophobic tale of terror and insanity with the eternal Lord Ruthven based on Byron himself. Mary Shelley called upon her nightmares and created a truly unique monster.

Many are inclined to dismiss Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus as a trifling story, fodder for a series of future matinees and backdrop to furtively frotting teens in the dark. But it is so much more. Frankenstein is the initial canon blast, a heavyweight for fans of Gothic, science fiction, and monstery goodness everywhere. And it was written by an 18-year-old woman.

A prescient tale about humanity's hubris as it swaggered cocksure into the Industrial Age, Frankenstein also completely re-stitched our perception of monsters. Previous beasts in literature had shown us the esoteric and supernatural grostesqueries of the unknown or the Hell's humanoid hunters, but Mary Shelley had created something new: a monster of men, created by man.

Man is now the monster and is crushing nature. Nature was now the prey. It is from this point we encounter The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and, far later, the cinematic world birthed the beloved Toxic Avenger (a reaction to environmental damage) and, to a lesser degree, Godzilla (Japan's acclimation to a post-atomic world). Stephen King examines these human monster archetypes in great detail in Danse Macabre.

As a quick aside, that Frankenstein sprung from fear and boredom shows the wellspring of creativity of which we are capable. True boredom is a gift. We don't have enough of it. Instead, we expend our energy on micro-commenting through a high tide of transient information. From boredom comes creativity and true innovation can come.

Previous monsters underscored our fear and ignorance of nature. Mary Shelley saw the truth: the greatest monster in the world is us

It is a literary truth universal that upon their transformation, nearly all vampires turn into insatiable beasts with a hankering for biting and shagging.

Let's face it: sex sells. So does violence and mystery. Vampire literature presents the perfect package of sex and fear. Gorgeous creatures who live to fulfill their every whim and indulge all the senses with such inhibition it would make Anais Nin blush, cross herself, and retire to her boudoir with a nice cup of tea.

The current vamp heavyweights follow this maxim: Twilight is to emo courtly love as Interview with the Vampire is to erotica as the Sookie Stackhouse Mysteries are to a drunken fumble in a back alley.

Vampires have long been edgy sex symbols, filled with vim, vigor, and type O. Before the recent crop of vampire bestsellers, film pushed the sexiness of the creature. Blade heaves his fangs into a willing woman with all the rhythm of frenzied coupling, while scores of women heaved their not-so-delicate chests towards Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee. Before that, Victorian-era Penny Dreadfuls literally screamed out the eroticism of a vampire's kiss. Vampires stalked their victims like crazed lovers, seducing their way towards destruction.

The shelves of bookstores are crammed with tales of seductive vamps looking for either lovers or soulmates and they're devoured by an insatiable public. Industries have sprung up, fat from sales of action dolls from Buffy, Bill, and Bella's beaus. But why do we find these animated cadavers so sexy?

The mode of vampire feeding is exceptionally erotic, if, well, a little bit bitey. Ravenous lips with sharpened teeth are sunk into erogenous zones on the human body. It's wet and just a bit rough. These are embraces filled with the ultimate passion, overwhelming the body and senses. The victim is wedged between ecstasy and potential annihilation by the Vampire's possessive kiss. In the words of William Blake in The Sick Rose" (Songs of Experience): "and his dark secret love does thy life destroy."

Vampires have now transformed themselves into boy-band heartthrobs for a new

Yesterday I was asked which Twilight Team got my freak flag flying. Truth be told, many things get that flapping — diving into myth, unexpectedly finding an old book under the bed, an unhealthily buttered bowl of mashed potatoes — but the characters of Twilight don't. They just don't ignite the cigarette lighter I have in place of a heart.

It's completely understandable why women are falling in a reverse Mexican wave over Edward, the impossibly cheekboned love interest of the Twilight melodrama. If I read four books that went into minute detail about the exquisite physical attributes of cheese, waded through how the very presence of cheese makes life more perfect than a month of pantless Sundays, how cheese could sustain me better than any other foodstuff in all of creation, but was unavailable to me, within minutes I would be down at the local fromagerie finding inventive and disturbing ways to smuggle out a wheel of heart-clogging delight. And I hate cheese.

However, in a narrative that presents men as fully realised and examined characters, readers are served up meditations on dazzling faces, smooth marble skin, and rippling muscles. All belonging to men who passionately court the underwritten everygirl, presenting themselves as beasts in desperate need of a potential maiden. Readers are enthralled to imagine themselves as Bella, who is undefined beyond her feelings for Edward and Jacob, with innocence and purity enough to tame their unpalatable savagery.

With every book sending Bella on yet another romantic saga to prove herself worthy of Edward's love, Meyer has capitalized on two powerful and perpetual feminine quests: to justify themselves as lovable and to give a love so perfect it will capture and change the unattainable man.

In her initial draft of Midnight Sun, 12 fledgling chapters which frame Twilight from Edward's point of view, Meyer is clear in her intent to present the character as a tortured romantic hero. He assumes the mantle of humanity perfected struggling to balance both the beast and the chaste lover within.

Is he a vampire? Or is Edward actually just a super-powered

Monsters.

Slathering, brutishly dumb and strong. Carnal serpents of sullied desire. Unrelenting wisps of evil that whip at our greatest fears. Magnificent bastards, all of them.

In The Power of Myth, Joseph Campbell described monsters as "explod[ing] all of your standards for harmony, order, and ethical conduct." But why do we need them? Why are we still writing about monsters in our shiny world where mystery has been conquered and exposed? Why didn't we leave them behind?

Originally, in stories like Beowulf, monsters served as an ultimate test for the hero, beasts filled with rage and power. The hero faces his/her fear, and slays the monster through ingenuity or amazing strength. The victorious heroes show themselves to be examples for their communities, transcending their mere mortality to become golden superhumans (unlike Beowulf's forever scarpering warriors, possibly to "Yakety Sax"). In contrast, the monster lays defeated, the threat removed, a wise lesson and example for all. Goodnight.

Eventually, as we grew in sophistication, we created monsters that moved beyond their vengeful, violent, and voracious ways. Monsters that represented our greatest sins, like the monsterfied seven deadly sins in Piers the Plowman or any number of grotesque additions to ecclesiastical art. We created monsters of ourselves — the other-worldly, all powerful witches (see Macbeth for their incarnation as political advisors). Imagination and fear ran riot — if a monster can be human, how can we tell them apart?

But monsters had become morality's bitch.

Thankfully, the vampire craze of the 1700s (and Erzsebet Bathory prior) brought some sleaze and lascivious grime back into monster tales. Vampires who grind into young maidens, draining them of their innocence in both Carmilla and Varney the Vampire. Slowly, motivations for monsters became more elaborate and detailed. They covet, they love, they despair, fight, and sometimes they get all emo and jump into Mount Vesuvius in a fit of boredom.

Could it be that there is a part of us that thrills in the monster? Is that why we need them? Can we see part of ourselves and others in their rampages? The stories that quicken our pulse and, if they're good, make us leap up and do a quick lap of the room (oh, don't try to deny it)?

Or is it that disquieting feeling that maybe, just perhaps, we wouldn't mind having a bit of that monster in us... or, even, worse, to succumb to its

Oh, hi.

I'm Amy Gray. I like smoking, carbs, and words. I live in the (currently) sleek humidity of Melbourne, Australia. When not lying horizontally on my life partner, the couch, I write. Just recently I wrote a book about vampires. I know. No, really, I know. Right now your eyebrows are raised, your hand clenched on the mouse or touchpad ready to click away in indignation. It's true: I have contributed to the glut of vampire books on the market.

But I am unrepentant.

Some eleven and a half months ago, I celebrated Christmas with a self-hosted, 40-hour vampire film festival. It started with the sublime Nosferatu and ended, somewhat inexplicably, with the first installment of Twilight.

At the time, my housemate and I nearly came to blows over the film. I was apoplectic over the characters, enraged by the original novel and smug about the slathering fans. How could a vampire book series ignore all the rich, velvety lore surrounding vampires? It was the vampire equivalent of a diet shake — it slaked a thirst momentarily but felt achingly incomplete. How could a new generation unfurl into a love of stylish monsters without the seduction of Carmilla (Dodo Press) by Le Fanu? The lyrical Dracula by Bram Stoker? The complete story arcs of Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Just what would you give to a fledgling intrigued by these lusty creatures of the night?

That's how the book came about. Presented as a manual for aspiring demons, How to Be a Vampire attempts to cram in over 3,000 years of history about one of folklore's most intoxicating bogeymen. Given almost every culture has a blood-sucking variant in the dark alleys of archetypes, it's a jumping board into a wading pool. There will always be greater and murkier depths to explore.

That's the other thing: I love monsters. Classical myths to men-in-a-rubber-suit films from the fifties and all that lies between. This week's blog posts will not be about the exquisitely ethereal gossamer of highbrow. We're going down, people, down to the heady lowbrow of monsterland and myth, where folklore rebirths as gaudy neon viscera.

Light a smoke and take my hand. It'll be fun.