With Halloween creeping steadily closer, and the world becoming spookier by the day, I can’t help but think of all the monsters that used to terrify and fascinate me as a child. I was heavy into horror films as a kid, and my parents had no qualms about indulging this interest. There wasn’t a gory film I wasn’t allowed to rent, or an issue of Fangoria I couldn’t browse through to my twisted heart’s content. Now that I’m a feeble old man, I find my tastes aren’t so different than that of my younger self. While I find historical dramas more riveting that horror movies, I still have a soft spot in my heart for those same monsters. Here are just some of my favorites:

Werewolves –

Easily the best monster ever, werewolves have always played second fiddle to vampires. I’ll never understand why. What’s so great about sleeping in a coffin and exploding when the sun comes out? Werewolves have it so much better, living a normal life for all but three nights of the month. And there’s none of the delicate constitution of vampires. The only thing that can kill you is a silver bullet, which most hunters are way too cheap to keep in stock.

Werewolves are also sexy! Taylor Lautner aside, a man that is in touch with his primal animal instincts must be a tiger in the sack. Or a wolf, as the case may be. I suspect all that shapeshifting back and forth is great for muscle tone too. The only werewolf to appear in my books so far is Nikolai in The Cat in the Cradle. His rarely seen human form is as handsome as can be, and I even gave him his own short story, but I’d like to write an entire book about lycanthropes some day.

Skeleton Warriors –

If there were runway models in the world of monsters, skeletons would be the most sought after. That’s not a skinny joke either. Skeletons simply look great no matter what you put them in. Whether they are wearing a sombrero, a bride’s gown, a pharaoh’s cowl, or a classy suit and top hat, skeletons never fail to impress.

My most favorite skeletons accessorize with a simple shield and sword. In Jason and the Argonauts, an evil wizard tosses hydra teeth to the ground like he’s spreading grass seed. What grows is a terrifying army of skeleton warriors. Not only do they look great, but they make effective soldiers as well. What are you going to do, stab their flesh? Poke out their eyes? There’s not a lot of ways to damage a pile of bones, especially when it’s animated and trying to kill you. See for yourself:

Demons –

I’ve always found demons interesting. I don’t mean generic devils. The demons I like have strange names and roles in Hell’s hierarchy. Asmodeus, Beelzebub, Mammon, and of course Lucifer. Each has their own story, but better than that is the creepy art portraying them. Few things inspired the artists of old like the threat of burning in Hell. Hieronymus Bosch made this his life’s work, and even though his paintings are over five hundred years old, their nightmare visions remain terrifyingly original.

Of course demons also have their charming side, appearing in the night and seducing innocent women (and not-so-innocent gay guys) with sinful promises of passion and pleasure. The most famous of these are the incubi. Okay, so succubi are more popular, but we’re talking about hot demon lords here. My favorite of course is Rimmon, who has a starring role in Hell’s Pawn. I certainly enjoyed writing him, and had more than one feverish incubus dream while working on that book.

Multi-headed dragons –

I’ve never been much for dragons, the generic beast of fantasy novels. I have nothing against them, but they’ve never interested me much. But give me a dragon with more than one head, and suddenly I can’t get enough. I love hydras, and not just because their teeth can raise armies of skeleton supermodels. Hydras are cool because they’re so damn hard to kill. It’s hard to say how many heads a hydra starts with, but cut off one and two grow back in its place. The only way of preventing this is by burning the severed neck stump. Unless you’re really good at multitasking, the hydra’s other heads are going to kill you while you’re trying to deal with just one of them.

The best hydra of all is Tiamat. Forget Babylonian mythology, I’m referring to the modern Dungeons and Dragons creation. This Tiamat is a dragon with five heads, each a different color and possessing different kinds of breath. It’s like someone combined a pride flag and a hell spawned dragon for the ultimate expression of gay fury. The red head breathes fire, the blue head shoots electricity, and the green head spews delicious martinis that render foes drunk and vulnerable. Not only that, but while Tiamat is devouring you whole, the other four heads can function as a decent barbershop quartet!

Those are some of my favorite beasties. Even though I poked fun at them, they still capture my imagination to this day and always will. Come this Halloween season, I wish you many delightful nightmares filled with sword fighting skeletons and debonair demons. Oh, and be sure to leave a comment below and tell me about some of your favorite monsters!