Raptor Red - Reception

Reception

Raptor Red was favorably received by critics and the mainstream press. Much praise was given to Bakker's anthropomorphising of the dinosaurs; a reviewer for the Toronto Star said that "Raptor Red does for dinosaurs what some nature writing does for creatures alive today: it turns data into stories. And stories are what all of us need to make these animals—even dinosaurs—come alive." Mark Nichols of Maclean's said that Bakker's success lay in making the reader hope that the dinosaurs were indeed creatures as Bakker portrayed.

In contrast to this positive reception, Entertainment Weekly felt that the anthropomorphising of the dinosaurs veered close to "a Disney cartoon." Other criticisms from the press included a lack of character needed for truly engrossing fiction. Reviewers described Bakker's work as "thoroughly heartfelt," despite flaws such as inconsistent writing; Men's News Daily, a site which focuses on social values, suggested that Bakker's raptors "possess a quaint, special appeal in today's social climate". Megan Gallagher's narration of the audiobook, combined with continuous sound effects and dramatic music to create an "aural picture," was also praised. Entertainment Weekly gave Raptor Red its "Best of Breed Award" for a "captivating novel about animal life".

Many critical reviews of the work came from scientists who objected to Bakker's looseness with scientific fact. The paleontologist Thomas Holtz noted that Bakker combined fauna in ways not directly supported by the fossil record; for example, several of the dinosaurs featured in the books lived millions of years after Utahraptor died out. Michael Taylor, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the National Museums of Scotland, panned the book, saying that "Raptor Red is an accurate portrayal only within the context of uncertainties over the reconstruction of fossil animals as living forms ... Bakker's postscript never really admits these uncertainties." David B. Norman criticized the book as "no more than a children's adventure story—and a rather poorly written one at that ... The merging of science and fantasy is at its worst in books like Raptor Red because none but the experts can disentangle fact from fiction; this type of nonsense turns an uninformed reader into a misinformed one." Jay Ingram, from the Discovery Channel, published a rebuttal, saying, "The most important point is that Bakker's portrayal of the dinosaurs in Raptor Red is vivid—vivid in a way few museum displays or factual accounts can be. And if it turns out in the long run that some of the speculation is unwarranted, who cares? Bob Bakker has given us a unique window onto the era of dinosaurs."

According to Bakker, the novel's success led to interest in a movie deal from Hollywood. According to Daily Variety in 1996, producer Robert Halmi Sr. made deals with Jim Henson's Creature Shop for film adaptations of Animal Farm and Raptor Red. No official project has been announced.