Science fiction and Catholics

One of the interesting things I discovered when I got to Luther, was that while a number of my friends and colleagues at BC read science fiction, most of my colleagues at Luther preferred mysteries. For a while I tried to figure out if there was anything substantial about this difference, but I finally concluded it was simply coincidence. Still, this blog post, which notes that “the astonishing thing is that science fiction and fantasy are absolutely awash in theological speculation…” reminds me of that early conjecture. I wonder what the writer would think is at the heart of mysteries?

For myself, I tend to think that sci fi thrives on raising questions, on speculation, while mystery thrives on puzzles with discernible answers. You may not figure out the answer until the end, but the conceit of the mystery is that it WILL be revealed. Maybe there's a thread there, something distinctive about the analogical imagination of Catholicism, and the dialectical imagination of Lutheranism?