杏吧原创

IN Robert Bakker鈥檚 dinosaurian 鈥渓ove story鈥�, the eponymous heroine, a medium-sized carnivorous dinosaur of the type now called Utahraptor, loses her mate and finds another in Early Cretaceous Utah. Her small social group is matriarchal, with the females larger than the males, just as in birds of prey (that is, 鈥渞aptors鈥� before Jurassic Park!), and hunting cooperatively, using unpleasantly effective slashing claws. A good idea and an author (see right) well versed in exciting the public about dinosaurs, but poorly executed.

Raptor Red compares, to my mind, poorly with good traditional nature writing like Henry Williamson鈥檚 Tarka the Otter. It鈥檚 not so much the book鈥檚 American-folksy, whimsical manner (an ankylosaur a 鈥渨hackity-whack鈥�?), but the crude style, the fragmented paragraphing, and debased neologisms like 鈥渄ino鈥�. Why replace the perfectly good 鈥減terosaur鈥�, or even 鈥減terodactyl鈥�, with 鈥渄actyl鈥�, and 鈥渟ea-crocodile鈥� with 鈥淢eer-Krokodil鈥�? Bakker鈥檚 own nonfiction The Dinosaur Heresies is much more competently written.

This novel might usefully convey exciting new science to someone who normally never reads factual dinosaur books, especially as 20-odd small sketches of patchy quality show the main characters. Worthily, with good intentions, Bakker crams in so much that the book鈥檚 reading qualities suffer, including details on the lifestyle of these dinosaurs and their contemporaries, as well as trendy topics like selfish genes, and kin and sexual selection (wrongly raising the possibility of sisters carrying 鈥渕ost鈥� of each others鈥� genes). The target readership isn鈥檛 stated, but must surely be teenage and older.

Raptor Red is an accurate portrayal only within the context of uncertainties over the reconstruction of fossil animals as living forms. Without knowing the Utah deposits, I can鈥檛 be categorical on detail (for example, I have seen no publication formally naming and describing Utahraptor) but there鈥檚 undoubtedly a great deal of speculation: logical maybe, and based on best biological theory and inference, but still speculation, even -especially! 鈥� nice touches such as the pterosaur described as mischievous and intelligent as a parrot. Bakker鈥檚 dinosaurs do tend to be bigger, faster, brainier, and sexier than anyone else鈥檚, and though perhaps not beyond the bounds of current debate, he鈥檚 certainly pushing on them. Now, such speculation is of course unavoidable in a dinosaur novel. It is nothing to be ashamed of, and you have to pick some particular viewpoint. Unfortunately, Bakker鈥檚 postscript never really admits these uncertainties.

Raptor Red suffers from the problem plaguing the historical novel since Walter Scott: those who know their saurians won鈥檛 find much truly new and those who don鈥檛 can鈥檛 tell between the fact and the fiction. It lacks the compensations of the good novel: the writing鈥檚 poor, and there鈥檚 not much insight into the human condition, though it certainly conveys Bakker鈥檚 views on the dinosaurian condition. You鈥檒l certainly broaden your ideas about dinosaurs, but you won鈥檛 be much more certain about where the objective truth actually lay 120 million years ago.