The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

Monsters in numberless quantities haunt the pages of horror novels, but none is more popular than the vampire. Why? Probably the versatility of the vampire. Most other monsters have severe limitations in how they can be portrayed. A thing from a swamp is destined to lurch around isolated farmhouses or in the sewers of some big city. By its very nature, it will be difficult to portray in meaningful relationships with people. In the majority of cases the monster's role will be that of the one dimensional evil character menacing the protagonists, but vanquished in the end. Other fictional creatures of horror suffer from similar problems.

The vampire, on the other hand, has almost endless potential for variety in its interactions with people and can vary from the evil one-dimensional monster to the psychic vampire working as a Nazi concentration camp guard, to the otherwise average person struggling to retain what little humanity is left to him as a vampire, to the delightfully charming and romantic Saint-Germain type of vampire. It is this endless variety and, above all, the ability to be human with all the strengths and weaknesses inherent in that humanity, which makes the vampire of fiction so popular.