Raptor Red: A Novel

This wonderful, jewel of a book takes the reader millions of years into the past. It is an exciting story of just how dinosaur life might have been. Bakker offers a scientific look into the world of the Raptor. His ideas are very well offered and he manages to keep an amazing amount of action throughout the story. He pulls at the emotions and feeds the mind at the same time. I just wish he would do other dinosaur based novels. Wonderful read! If you grew up like me, loving dinosaurs, this is a book for you! Bakker seems to be a supporter of evolutionary theory, but the book is a great story none the less.

Raptor Red
Robert T. Baker
Clement Lim
This book is just amazing. When I first read it I was hooked on it the minute the first word started. Robert T. Baker describes every aspect of the Mesozoic Era through the eyes of a young Utahraptor who calls herself red. Every piece fits perfectly as Robert describes life of that time period and the Utahraptors impact on American dinosaur life. This book is also a great resource information as it tells how exactly the muscles, coordination, and strategy are all mixed into one big fight for food and survival. Nothing in the whole entire world can be better than that.
The story starts out as Robert T. Baker describes a hunt. Raptor Red looks out of a fern bush and surveys a pack of mating Astrodon with her mate. Soon enough they choose a young male who isn't paying attention. As soon as they're limbs twitch, their off to hunt. The male is alarmed but by then it's to late. The raptors have already slashed at their prey with extreme ferocity. No matter how many times he tries to escape them the raptors follow. Soon their most deadly claw kills their prey with the utmost quickness. However, after the feast a terrible thing happens. Raptor Red's mate sinks into some quicksand. Since raptors make excellent killers but poor diggers, she hopelessly watches as her mate for the last 5 year dies.
Raptor Red soon gets right back up on her feet after her shock dies down. During her search for a new mate however, she finds her sister's chicks and rushes off to go meet her. They soon find a plump female Iguanadon and rips her apart in a flurry of slashes and brings the carcass back for some lunch. One day after being thoroughly well fed she finds herself strangely attracted to some red flowers. Soon herds start coming and mate with each other as their are so many of their own kind around. Rapor Red finds a male older than her. As soon as the male looks back, they start a courtship dance, a necessary ritual for mating. After fiting a much older utahraptor than herself, she finds herself landed with a new mate, although her sister doesn't like him. As since I can't give the rest of the book away, I recommend that you buy this book and read it on your own if your fascinated by the ancient world of dinosaurs.

I first read this book right after I saw Jurrasic Park, and the raptors made me scream with delight and, I'll admit, a bit of fear. Raptor Red is the story of a young female Utahraptor, and it evolves the raptors from Jurassic Park into smart, intellegent creatures that care for their young and dream. An excellent book with very vivid prose, the author takes time to expand on little details, and thus this book is also educational, although you hardly notice. I hope we'll see another fiction book from Robert Bakker soon.

This book is a delightful, perfectly serious look at a year in the life of a raptor before people walked the earth. We listened to it when the children were young and now they are all grown up and out of the house and I am looking desperatedly for an audiobook in CD or MP3 format of the same thing both for myself and for the young people NOW in my life! I highly recommend it for everyone.

This is one of the most emotionally provocative titles I have ever read. It's intelligent, witty, interesting, and deeply moving. I read it over and over, and have grown to love the heroine. I'm not joking when I say that this may very well be my all-time favorite book (and I read a lot!). forget dinosaur nuts, I reccomend this to EVERYONE!
- Steel Phoenix (formerly Iron Phoenix)

As a "dinosauroligist", I loved this book. This is probably the first book that comes from a dinosaur's point of view. It goes deeper into these animals when it comes from their viewpoint. Instead of showing dinosaurs as stupid and slow, Raptor Red shows dinosaurs as creatures that have emotion. Raptor Red also has many encounters with other dinosaurs like acrocanthosaurus, gastonia, and troodonts. It shows how dinosaurs of different species react with each other. Highly recommended.

Bakker is one of the best paleontological authors including Steven Alten. I am 13 years old and I read this book in 1 week I thought it was very in depth and the book is a new look into the Utahraptor mind. Robert Bakker has given us a look at the Dinosaurs and his book will be remembered as his first great book I hope he will write a sequel to this great book.

"A pair of fierce but beautiful eyes look out from the dull green undergrowth...the eyes belong to a youg adult Utahraptor...her eyes move back and forth, executing the rapid scanning of a hunter who is thinking about everything she sees. She is an intelligent killer..."

Thus begins "Raptor Red" a interesting and wonderous tale of the year in the life of a female Utahraptor. At first, one might believe this to be a documentary, or some boring story about a dinosaur. But what if the story was told by the dinosaur itself? Rivetting and spell-binding, this is an escape from reality into a world of peril, survival, and risky adventure. It gives a whole new light to the world of dinosaurs. For anyone who's a fan of Jurassic Park, you're in for a treat, or maybe I should put it as a warning.

Because in this story...Raptors rule.

Bakker is one of the best paleontological authors including Steven Alten. I am 13 years old and I read this book in 1 week I thought it was very in depth and the book is a new look into the Utahraptor mind. Robert Bakker has given us a look at the Dinosaurs and his book will be remembered as his first great book I hope he will write a sequel to this great book.

"A pair of fierce but beautiful eyes look out from the dull green undergrowth...the eyes belong to a youg adult Utahraptor...her eyes move back and forth, executing the rapid scanning of a hunter who is thinking about everything she sees. She is an intelligent killer..."

Thus begins "Raptor Red" a interesting and wonderous tale of the year in the life of a female Utahraptor. At first, one might believe this to be a documentary, or some boring story about a dinosaur. But what if the story was told by the dinosaur itself? Rivetting and spell-binding, this is an escape from reality into a world of peril, survival, and risky adventure. It gives a whole new light to the world of dinosaurs. For anyone who's a fan of Jurassic Park, you're in for a treat, or maybe I should put it as a warning.

Because in this story...Raptors rule.

This title "Raptor Red" depicts the life of a female velociraptor at the decline of the dinosaur society. Raptors have been described as the most efficient hunters of the dinosaur community, and is a perfect subject for a novel. Bakker uses colorful imagery words to paint a lush picture that helps feed the storyline. It begins with tragedy, and follows the "Raptor Red" through trials and tribulations that show the complexity of Bakker's theories of dinosaurs. Bakker expresses "Raptor Red's" luck many times, with stories within themselves. This book is an excellent chance for readers to excape the modern world and enter a time that leaves your imagination to paint the pictures. I suggest this book to anyone who is interested in a ficticous stories with excellent storylines. If you love to use your imagination, you will love to read this book.

I enjoyed this book very much, mostly because I am interested in prehistoric life, and I believe this added a nice insight into what the possibilities were for a dinosaur to see, feel, and think. This book also seemed to parallel modern society, because there is that constant want to improve their own situation and dominate in whatever you endeavor. In addition to this, this book also shows how, when faced with change, people, or in the book's case, dinosaurs, freeze because of the uncertaintly of what to do, as was seen with the flowers. What I really like about this book is that it never gets old to me, because every time I reread it, a new detail seems to appear that I overlooked, which enhances my reading experience.

If you are looking for an animal story that stays true to the science, one that tells the struggles of life and remains uplifting without sentimentalism, then you can hardly find a better book than this.

i know bakker is an authority on dinosaurs, and i'm sure his nonfiction books are excellent to read, but he is not a fiction writer. and it shows in this book. i know what he wanted to do, but he should have left that job up to those who make a living writing. the text jumps between a narrative account and a documentary. the language falls flat, and without human characters, bakker is unable to make raptor red interesting. it's a nice try, but instead of this book, pick up one of bakker's nonfiction pieces and one of crichton's novels.

A completely different take on the world of the dinosaurs! It's engaging, very well written, and it's remarkably easy to read! I first read it in high school, loved it, and was so excited to get a copy for my growing book collection!

I just finished reading this one with my middle-school-aged grandson who loves dinosaurs. He was delighted and really enjoyed. He asked me, when we were done, if there were more books like this one. I think that means he would definitely recommend it.

Raptor Red is a female <i>Utahraptor ostrommaysi</i>. She loses her mate after migrating from Asia to Utah. This novel is beautiful. You will be sad when Raptor Red faces hard, saddening challenges. I was so enthraled with this book, I read it again.

Great book! Bakker vividly illustrates the mesozoic world. The story is as follows:a female utahraptor loses her lifelong mate and sets out to find another.She faces giant "acros",or acrocanthosaurs, floods and other obstacles. This story has a little of every thing, including comedy and action. I highly recomend this book!!!

A wonderfully imaginative and unique work -- Bakker makes his characters vivid, interesting, and empathetic, without needing to anthropomorphise them -- truly an achievement. Recommended to all paleontology fans.

After reading so many good reviews on this book I must say I expected more. I thought I'd be reading and objective, docudrama from the dinosaur era but it definitely has a Disneyesque style. To many heroic acts and dinosaurs in love??? While I find it very feasible that dinosaurs were intelligent I find it hard to beleive they have emotional traits we cannot apply to even the most advanced animals of today.Although well written and do I appreciate the use of some dramatic licence and perhaps this book is aimed at a younger audience (I'm 25)but to me it was like any other romantic drama with dinosaurs as the main characters.........Mills and Boon with Teeth!

I thought this book was really awesome! I first heard the audio tape on a trip to FL. I thought it was really good and not too long after that, my dad bought it for me. I've read it over and over. I think it's pretty cool what Bakker did, what with it not having dialoge and all. The animal talking stuff can get old if you read enough books with that in it. Bakker just tells it as it is, he tells us what's happening and what Raptoer Red thinks. I think it's a refreshing way to read. I really feel like I'm back in prehistoric times, hunting right there with the raptors.

One of my friends let me borrow Raptor Red, saying it was her favorite book. Boy, when I read it, I could tell why she read it nine times over! I don't want to give it back now! This book is definitely one in a million. The whole book is seen through Rapror Red's opinion and veiws. I used to be totally into dinosaurs, and this book gave me a whole new outlook on how they think and act. The book lets you in on all of her thoughts and how her life is. I thoroughly enjoyed Raptor Red!

Raptor Red takes you back to a convincingly realistic prehistoric atmosphere. The way Bakker describes the animals` thoughts make you believe it could very well be the way Utahraptor thought long ago. An informative as well as exciting masterpiece for any dinosaur lover.

Bakker had written a book that anyone could read, as long as they knew who darwin was and did. He revolutionised they way most people thought about dinosaurs, and reinforced my beliefs. Now I feel that I am no longer alone. Since a 13-year-old is usually only be so smart, I find it very hard for me to discuss my mind in real life with anyone else. Dinosaurs were once intelligent creatures. We only consider them slow and dumb, because they died off. If we were hit by a meteor right now we would go extinct as well.

Can you imagine a love story twenty two million years ago? Probably can't, right? Then read Raptor Red. No, it isn't about cavemen (Homo sapiens didn't exist then); it's about Utahraptors. There are three ways to read this book: one, read it by yourself; two, read it to a dinomaniac kid; or three, listen to it on tape (okay that's not a way to read it but you get the idea). All in all Raptor Red is one of the best fictional dinosaur books ever written.

Being interested in dinosaurs and paleontology, I thought the book was great. When I first bought the book, I thought this book is only for dinofans. How wrong I was. It was simple to understand and the way Bakker gets into the head of Raptor Red was extraordinary. Any one with the tiniest bit of interest in dinosaurs should read this book, this book has done what many other fiction or science fiction had never done before, telling a story from an animal's point of view.

I loved the book and thought it was very entertaining. It was very unique and although I was at first afraid that it would be extrememly boring with no dialoge. . .I quickly got caught up in the novel and couldn't put it down. . .I recommend this book for anyone interested in dinosaurs and even those not so much interested in them. . .it's a really good book. . .read it

Raptor Red was an outstanding novel! It had a great amount of suspense, action, adventure, and dramatics. This is a must read, especially if you like dinosaurs! If you thought Jurassic Park blew you out of your seat, Raptor Red will blow you out of town! -Derrick Davis age,12

For geology class we were assigned to read this book and I thought that it would be boring and like a text book. I was pleasantly surprised to see that it wasnt this way. I am not a big dino lover but this book was fairly entertaining and very readable. it gives you a vivid glimpse of what life might have been like for these animals. It wasnt the worst book I have had to read for school!

I am a paleontologist and I thought this book was horribly thought-out conjecture that purports to be "real-science". HA! I think the author should leave the science to the scientists and the sci-fi to the authors. Don't quit your day job.

I love this book because Robert T. Bakker told the story from the dinosaurs POV. It tells about her life on the Utah Plains, her triles and tribulations, family, mates and its all in a story just like a person. (exept without alot of talking). I highly recomend this book to any reader board of the same writing pecies.

What was Bakker thinking when he wrote this book? Was he thinking straight? THIS BOOK IS TERRIBLE!!! I don't know why so many people gave this book good reviews. WORDS OF WISDOM:reading this book is a very bad idea

This book is packed with action. Every couple of paragraphs there is more action. Anyone who is into dinosaurs should read this book. Robert Bakker portrays the dinosaurs as colorful, energetic animals. Not as the dull, monotone animals we think of now. Trust me you'll enjoy it!

I loved this book. Adults and children can read it and it is full of action and thrills and yet is not full of foul language so that goes to show that you can have an excellent book that everyone can read and enjoy. If a person is interested in dinos, then this is a book to read.

Raptor red is an okay book that starts out strong but in the middle it begans to gets undeseriable to read. The middle of the book is a part that you have to keep on reading. On the other hand this book is great at the beganing and end. So if you like to read about dinosaurs go ahead and read your heart out.

Simply outstanding. I buy only a few books in hardcover for my library, and Raptor Red is a prized possession. I rarely re-read a book, but every 6-18 months or so I read it again! it's that captivating. Please, Mr. Bakker, do it again!

I loved this book. Dr. Bakker creates a picture in your mind that you won't easily forget. I read this book over and over and I am constantly fascinated with its realism. I would and do recommend this book to nearly everyone I know.