Y'know, dinosaurs do not get enough credit! I believe that this book was written during the glory days of "Jurrassic Park", but offers a different and clever alternative as it takes us back through the eons to a female raptor and her family.

Rather than boring us with the typical sci-fi twist, this story plays as rather a drama, a quiet and surprisingly personal look at a family that happens to be dinosaurs. Don't worry--it doesn't do the obnoxious anthromorph bit and turn them all into talking beasts, but the author still manages to let you into Raptor Red's head with a story that is delightfully more character-based than plot-.

One of the best aspects of this book is the gorgeous writing, full of sumptious detail that captures the spirit, if not necessarily uknown science, of this period of time.

It's a haunting, beautifully written book with some of the best animal characters ever seen.

I don't really know how to rate this book; I could give it 5 stars for its impressive and effective depiction of what life in the Early Cretaceous might have been life for a Utahraptor, or I could give it 3 stars for its (probable; we'll never know) departure from reality and its chimerical fantasy-style romanticism. I guess I'll give it 4.

I really did like this book, and have read it 3 or so times. That said, it falls more under "Fantasy" (in my opinion, one of the worst genres, with a few exceptions) than "science fiction" and certainly "science".

Robert T. Bakker is a well known, influencial, and at times somewhat controversial paleontologist. In his novel "Raptor Red", he also proves he can be an entertaining and fairly talented author. The story is set 120 million years ago in the Western United States. The protagonist is a female Utah Raptor caught up in an epic and often harsh story of survival. The tale has plenty of action ranging from battles between various kinds of prehistoric life(large and small), a massive deluge, kronosaurs going after dinosaurs on the beach like killer whales hunting seals, and the climatic confrontation with a pack of smaller raptors in a snowy mountain region. Throughout it all, Bakker weaves in some of his concepts of dinosaurs and their adaptations without letting himself get bogged down in those details. The story that emerges is a grand tale of evolution, life, and struggle in the natural world. Bakker's characters are surprisingly intelligent without being silly. True, at times (like other reviewers if I'm not mistaken) I wondered if they were a little too intelligent for dinosaurs, but then again, they may have been smarter than people often give them credit for.
One reason I read "Raptor Red" was a sense of nostalgia remembering the days as a kid when I would go to the library and check out books on dinosaurs. I remembered Bakker from Discovery Channel documentaries and hoped this novel would be satisfactory. Overall it was excellent. I wouldn't reccommend it for very young readers due to the violence and Bakker's occassional use of language. In conclusion, a good story by an imaginative writer.

Raptor romance?

Bakker, an eminent palaeontologist has come up with a novel. Basically, a life study as he follows the travels and adventures, if you can call if that, of a female of the velociraptor species. If that sort of realistic animal tale appeals, then you will perhaps like this book a bit more than I did. I like Bakker's other work, have read his papers etc., but this was a bit blah.

Simply one of the best books I've ever read! You have to read it to understand. It's written from the perspective of a living dinosaur---a raptor---by an author who loves dinosaurs and has an incredible ability to recreate the world in which they lived. Read it and you'll never forget it! Has my highest recommendation.