"Blood Music" is part of the Frankenstein tradition in literature. While staying in the home of Lord Byron in Switzerland in the early 1800s, Mary Shelley had a dream that she shared with Byron and other guests during a parlor game in which each person told a scary story. Inspired by a dream in which a monstrous being pulled aside her bed curtains and looked at her while she slept, Shelley created a story of a frightful being who had been brought to life in a scientific experiment. This story became the novel Frankenstein: or The Modern Prometheus.

The subtitle refers to the Greek Titan who stole fire from the heavens and brought it to Earth for the use of all humanity against the wishes of the chief god Zeus. In Shelley's tale, Dr.

Frankenstein is symbolically equated with Prometheus because he usurps God's power to...