Because this is a book of love letters to a dead author, it is a difficult read, as well as sometimes overwhelming. And there is significant repetition of some of the thoughts, because Octavia Butler was so important to so many people who went on to become writers of science fiction and fantasy; many of those journeys are thematically similar.

And I say love letters rather than fan letters or anything else, because they are so much more than fan letters. They talk of the abiding change that Butler made in the lives of so many people by being not only an amazing writer, but someone who had faith in the writing of others, and lifted people up.

It isn't a five star read for me because I did find it repetitive and at times I've put it down for weeks on end. And as such I think I missed what it might have been in aggregate, with all those threads coming together to give shape to the influence that Butler continues to have. ( )

This book is a collection of essays about Octavia Butler, mostly in the form of letters to her. It's okay. I'm sure the letters were all deeply, individually meaningful to write, but reading a number of them becomes a bit samey, as not many of them are imbued with lots of specifics. I also have a suspicion that the number of them that revolve so much around the election of President Trump will age badly. Or maybe that's more of a hope, though it does indicate to me that I need to read Butler's Parables books. Anyway, I did enjoy several of the essays (I had a slight bias toward the academic ones, perhaps unsurprisingly), but on the whole I didn't find this book essential, and don't feel I learned a whole lot about Butler from it.

https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3011065.html

Luminescent Threads, in a similar format to Letters to Tiptree and sharing an editor, brings together short pieces by almost fifty writers about the effect that Butler's writing had on them, including several who have attended the Clarion writers' workshop thanks to the scholarship established in Butler's name. Most of the pieces were written in the immediate aftermath of the Trump victory and inauguration, and many of the writers were still reeling in shock and invoking Butler, who foresaw the sort of regime that Trump would like to lead, as an inspiration in dark times.

I have to say that I was less satisfied with Luminescent Threads than I was with Letters to Tiptree. I felt that there was less internal organisation - it might have been more interesting to group the scholarly essays separately from the more personal letters. I also really missed Butler's own voice - Letters to Tiptree included a number of letters from Tiptree, whereas here we hear from Butler only in one short interview at the end. I salute the commitment of the editors and contributors, but the structure didn't quite work for me. ( )