Objectionable material?

Non objectionable rating:

Look, personally, I love stories that don’t shy away from showing the true face of evil, war and less than savory behavior. To learn from the mistakes of our ancestors or characters in fiction, or from to learn from their triumphs, we have to be willing to face things as they really happen. However some people would like things toned down a little and I can understand that. Thus here we have a different rating system. This is developed to tell parents what they should probably steer clear of, tell prudes what probably won’t pass for them, and even to tell those like myself who aren’t very judgmental, but still draw the line sometimes, what probably isn’t for them.

Gore

Essentially this is how much bodily fluid is displayed flying out of our pro and antagonists.

• ·         -1 Very little blood.

Blood comes only from small wounds.

• ·         -2 Natural amount of blood.

Blood is often shown, but in a realistic amount, coming from wounds that are often fatal.

• ·         -3 Blood and gore used to comical extent.

Unrealistic amounts of blood comes out of victims, whether they live or die from this is hard to understand as that much blood isn’t in the human body to begin with.

• ·         -4 Scenes of heavy gore that are played to effect, not to amuse.

These are not exaggerated scenes of werewolf transformations, or scenes of general battle. These are scenes of arms being slowly sawed off, or scenes of obvious and blatant cannibalism. You probably won’t see me reviewing too many of these kinds of stories.

Torment of the characters.

This is not a commentary on general scenes of violence. Torment or torture, generally means one rather innocent seeming character is made the helpless victim of another and viciously harmed in a blatant manner.

• ·         -1 beyond normal punishment

This essentially means that characters in this story are subjected to mental or physical abuse not likely to kill, but still far beyond grade school bullying. This is generally manifest as survivable child or spousal abuse in fiction (not sure why).

• ·         -2 Criminal level punishment

This means a character is subjected to solitary confinement or severe beatings that could legitimately kill or drive him insane with just one application.

• ·         -3 Torture

A character is purposefully kept alive and forced to endure incredibly painful and even terrifying operations or beatings for long and drawn out periods of time. This is the point of sawing off limbs or inquisition level… yea you probably won’t see many of these kinds of books on my blog, if any at all. When I see a scene like this, I tend to stop reading.

Violence

• ·         -1 War

This essentially means that violence is an obvious focal point of the story. Characters don’t die, but it’s is an obvious possibility.

• ·         -2 Righteous killing

Only the bad guys ever seem to die.

• ·         -3 Realistic killing

Both good and bad people die.

• ·         -4 Killing plus!

People die in scenes of true gore or torture. Probably not going to see a lot of these either.

Sexuality

• ·         -1 sex brought up

This means it’s brought up that characters had sex of some form, but generally nothing is shown.

• ·         -2 sexual themes

This means several jokes and presented ideas are of an obvious sexual nature.

• ·         -3 drawn out sexual encounters

This means that for some reason the writer thought we needed to see someone else having sex or indulging in degrading sexual activities.

• ·         -4 fetish story

I’m not featuring these.

Racism

• ·         -1 Implied racism

This is hard to call, not because it’s hard to see, but because people don’t like to hear about it. Folks don’t like to hear that the story “Red Wall” implied racist attitudes by setting up the idea that certain species were evil no matter what and certain species were predominately good. They didn’t even imply that these creatures were born of evil magic, just that some kinds of animals are just born rotten as an entire race… yea… not a particularly edifying mentality huh? Sure it’s forgivable if it seems the author didn’t intend the message, but I’d say keep your eyes on stories that cast characters as evil because of where they come from or what they are.

• ·         -2 Overzealous xenophobia

A story that frequently shows characters foreign to a certain land showing up, and always being evil caricatures.

• ·         -3 Politically correct racism

Let’s face it, it just isn’t true. The settlers did NOT come to the shores of North America and immediately wipe out a bunch of piece loving primitive native tribes. In reality the two societies lived side by side for a long time and mutual conflicts arose until finally there was an ultimate victor. However because the settlers were ultimately in the wrong, we see fit in modern society to simplify everything and portray them as straight up devils. This is politically correct racism. It’s still wrong and portrays all involved parties in a false light that in reality is not productive. However it’s tolerated because of slight historical accuracy, and the difficulty of setting things straight without getting glares from over sensitive types.

• ·         -4 Clear racism

This means someone is actually trying to get you to actively hate other human beings. I don’t read these stories on purpose and won’t want to give them the free publicity, so you won’t be seeing them.

Horror

Horror is an element of its own sometimes. Many stories will draw out scenes of suspense to the point where the reader is obviously meant to experience fear for a character.

• ·         -1 horror

Really a story either is or is not scary and personally, I don’t see varying degrees of this.

General promotion of evil ideas

Yes, some stories really do glamorize ideologies that are universally considered to be evil. This is like a story that glamorizes gang life or deliberate mistreatment of women or even children.

• ·         -1 for comedic effect

Actually a good number of stories that “promote evil” only glamorize the sinister for a laugh, this is essentially the idea behind the “Adams Family”.

• ·         -2 glamorize cartoonish evil

Essentially this is stories written by wannabe rock stars. Evil characters are given ridiculous powers and personalities that couldn’t possibly exist in the real world. Presentations like this are almost tongue in cheek, but aren’t necessarily aiming for laughter just the cheesy “way cool dude!” response.

• ·         -3 Glamorize criminal element

Let’s just be honest with ourselves for a moment. The mafia is not glamorized to point out the flaws of prohibition era laws. It really is a celebration of the less savory elements of humanity. Perhaps we shouldn’t but everyone is guilty of day dreaming about being on the wrong side of the law. Some stories go along with this day dream.

• ·         -4 Glamorizing real and morally bankrupt behavior

Just because something is against the law, doesn’t mean that it’s morally repulsive to do. Personally, I don’t see what’s so wrong with someone getting high in their own house, but the cops will bust you for it anyway. However some are guilty of glamorizing more than crimes that can be partially justified. Glamorizing the mafia and gangs often goes hand in hand with glamorizing things they do that can be universally condemned, even by members of those groups in particular. The promotion of murder, stealing, abuse of women and children and even rape sneaks into some stories. Generally when I see this, call me a prude if you want, but I stop reading. I’m glad to be called a prude on that note.

Views I take issue with

Look, it’s my blog get over it. At least I’ll only take off one point if you promote abortion or some other such stupidity.

• ·         -1

I guess that’s a scale of 0 to -25. 

Be aware that a story with a score of zero, I’m probably going to say feels incredibly anti-climactic. If nothing controversial happens, what is even at stake in the story? A score of 0 is not a recommendation of the story, it’s just stating that you basically have a Dr. Seuss book. This rating system does not tell you if a story is worth reading, but is a way of gauging “what you’re getting into”.