What's a GARS Score?

When I was ruminating on the difference between urban fantasy and paranormal romanceI tried to arrange all the books I've read that fall into these categories in order from UF to PNR, and immediately ran into difficulties. What if a book has a lot of action and a lot of romance? What if it has very little romance but lots of *ahem* action (yes, this time it's that kind of action)? To make the task easier and because there were lots of other things I didn't want to do, I created a quantitative way to determine where books fall on the scale. I call it the GARS scale.

GARS stands for Grittiness, Action, Romance, Sex. I gave each series a score from one to five, then took the ratio of G and A to R and S. The lower the score, the more the book is weighted towards romance. Higher scores have less love than war. Here's a list of everything I've read on this spectrum and their GARS scores, but first, a few notes:

a) The categories: Grittiness refers to the graphic depiction of violence in the story. Action, of course, involves fighting, pursuit, explosions, etc. Romance is mostly of the Happily Ever After variety, though shorter relationships did get a couple points. Sex should be fairly obvious; the higher the score, the more detailed the description.

b) These scores are completely unrelated to how I felt about the book, or at least I tried to keep them objective. If a book got a one in every category, that wouldn't mean it was bad, nor would fives across the board necessarily indicate a great book.

c) Scores can change. Most of these series haven't yet been completed, and I haven't read all the currently extant books in every one of them. The scores I've given the books reflect what I've read so far, and I tried to avoid giving scores to series without having read at least the first two books (unless there's only one book out).

d) Scores are relative. I started out each category by assigning a one to the book I though had the least of it and a five to the book that had the most. That means that a one in action, for example, actually had a reasonable amount of action, it was just less than everything else. (A one in sex pretty much means no sex scenes, though.)


Then I assigned scores to all the series I've read, to give you a better picture of what scores mean:

Aisling Grey, Guardian by Katie MacAlister: 0.57 (2/2/3/4)
Alex Craft by Kalayna Price: 1 (3/3/3/3)
Alpha and Omega by Patricia Briggs: 0.57 (2/2/4/3)
Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter (through book 8 or so) by Laurell K. Hamilton: 1.29 (5/4/3/4)
Black Dagger Brotherhood by JR Ward: 0.4 (2/2/5/5)
Cassie Palmer by Karen Chance: 1.14 (3/5/3/4)
Charley Davidson by Darynda Jones: 0.88 (3/3/4/4)
Chicagoland Vampires by Chloe Neill: 0.67 (1/3/3/3)
Dark Swan by Richelle Mead: 1 (4/3/3/4)
The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher: 2.25 (4/5/2/2)
Dorina Basarab by Karen Chance: 1.17 (3/4/3/3)
The Edge by Ilona Andrews: 0.78 (3/4/5/4)
Elemental Assassin by Jennifer Estep: 1 (3/3/3/3)
Elemental Masters by Mercedes Lackey: 0.5 (1/2/5/1)
Enchantment Emporium by Tanya Huff: 0.5 (1/2/4/2)
Fever by Karen Marie Moning: 1.33 (3/5/3/3)
Georgina Kincaid by Richelle Mead: 0.56 (2/3/4/5)
Guild Hunter by Nalini Singh: 1 (4/4/4/4)
Haven by Kalayna Price: 1 (3/2/3/2)
Highlander by Karen Marie Moning: 0.3 (2/1/5/5)
The Hollows by Kim Harrison: 1.33 (3/5/3/3)
Insatiable by Meg Cabot: 0.57 (1/3/4/3)
Iron Druid by Kevin Hearne: 1.67 (2/3/1/2)
Jazz Tremaine by Linda Wisdom: 0.57 (3/1/4/3)
Kara Gillian by Diana Rowland: 1.17 (4/3/2/4)
Kate Daniels by Ilona Andrews: 1.14 (3/5/4/3)
Kitty Norville by Carrie Vaughn: 1 (3/2/3/2)
Mercy Thompson by Patricia Briggs: 1.2 (3/3/3/2)
Night Huntress by Jeaniene Frost: 0.88 (3/4/4/4)
Night Huntress World by Jeaniene Frost: 0.4 (2/2/5/5)
Psy-Changeling by Nalini Singh: 0.6 (4/2/5/5)
Riley Jenson, Guardian by Keri Arthur: 1 (4/4/3/5)
Sandman Slim by Richard Kadrey: 5 (5/5/1/1)
Shadow World by Dianne Sylvan: 0.75 (4/2/4/4)
Sunshine by Robin McKinley: 1.6 (4/3/3/2)
Women of the Otherworld by Kelley Armstrong: 0.75 (3/3/4/4)