Raptor Red: A Novel

by Robert T. Bakker

Overview

A pair of fierce but beautiful eyes look out from the undergrowth of conifers.  She is an intelligent killer...

So begins one of the most extraordinary novels you will ever read.  The time is 120 million years ago, the place is the plains of prehistoric Utah, and the eyes belong to an unforgettable heroine.  Her name is Raptor Red, and she is a female Raptor dinosaur.

Painting a rich and colorful picture of a lush prehistoric world, leading paleontologist Robert T. Bakker tells his story from within Raptor Red's extraordinary mind, dramatizing his revolutionary theories in this exciting tale.  From a tragic loss to the fierce struggle for survival to a daring migration to the Pacific Ocean to escape a deadly new predator, Raptor Red combines fact an fiction to capture for the first time the thoughts, emotions, and behaviors of the most magnificent, enigmatic creatures ever to walk the face of the earth.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780553575613
Publisher:	Random House Publishing Group
Publication date:	08/01/1996
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	4.13(w) x 6.86(h) x 0.66(d)
Lexile:	960L (what's this?)
Age Range:	14 - 18 Years

Read an Excerpt

Raptor Red watches and thinks.

When she is feeling well fed and content and well loved, her mental powers are allowed to indulge themselves.  She can experiment.

She walks parallel to the shoreline, watching the waves carefully, focusing her eyes below the surface.  She keeps her distance from the average line where the waves break.

There!  She sees another huge shape cruising parallel to the shore.  She watches-and a giant head breaks surface.

She stands on tiptoes, trying to look as tall as possible.

She waits...   waits...   waits...

Here it comes!  she shouts to herself.  She flexes her knees and ankles. An immense dark torpedo comes right at her, plowing through the breakers.

Just as the head and front flippers begin to slide up the beach, Raptor Red turns and jumps four strides diagonally, upslope and to her right.

Whhhmmmpp!  The big kronosaur stops exactly on the spot where Raptor Red was standing a few seconds earlier.

Fssshhhh!  Foam and steam exit in two jets from the kronosaur's nostrils, just in front of the eyes.  The great sea-reptile pauses, then retreats awkwardly back to the water.

The male raptor is amazed.

What People are Saying About This

James Gurney

Raptor Red is a masterpiece of dramatic writing....many writers have imagined the mezozoic world; Pakker lives and breathes it. He becomes a dinosaur, and allows us through his vivid prose to join him on the journey. After reading it I feel I have stepped into another creature's claws.

Arthur C. Clarke

A truly extraordinary book. I read it with complete fascination and feel like I've been on a one hundred and twenty million year virtual reality trip. That's the way it must have been back there at the dawn of intelligence.

Editorial Reviews

"What the real Jurassic Park must have been like...exciting, bold and fun!" —Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

Narrated from the point of view of a dinosaur, paleontologist Bakker's novel is filled with facts and informed speculations regarding dinosaur life. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

The dinosaur known as "raptor" first became well known through Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park (Knopf, 1990). Revolutionary paleontologist Bakker (The Dinosaur Heresies, LJ 11/1/86), who consulted on the special effects for the film adaptation, has written a novel that might be subtitled "A Year in the Life of a Dinosaur," as he tells the story of Raptor Red, a giant carnivore of the Early Cretaceous period. Having lost her mate in a botched hunting attack, Red (so-named because of the red stripe on her snout distinguishing her from other raptor species) joins forces with her sister and her sister's three chicks to survive in a world of hostile natural forces. Bakker manages to mix scientific theoriessome of which are definitely on the cutting edgewith a rip-roaring narrative. Perhaps even more miraculously, he has created a sympathetic nonhuman heroine without anthropomorphizing her into a Disney character. This astonishing and successful novel will appeal to a wide audience and belongs in all fiction collections. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 6/15/95.]Eric W. Johnson, Teikyo Post Univ. Lib., Waterbury, Conn.

Library Journal

Bakker (Tate Museum, Casper, Wyo.), proponent of the warm-blooded dinosaur theory, tells of a clan of Utahraptors (1/2 ton, 25 ft.) from their perspectives & those of their cohorts at the dawn of the Cretaceous Age. Good writing; good story. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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