SOURCE: "A Creed for the Third Millennium," in Los Angeles Times Book Review, July 21, 1985, p. 6.

Below, Mitchell offers an unfavorable review of A Creed for the Third Millennium.

We're pushing the fast-forward button here to 2032–33—not quite 50 years from now. But when you think that 50 years ago, Rudolph Valentino had already been dead for almost a decade, you see how fast time flies. So what's good about Colleen McCullough's novel, set in a future where people are freezing to death, is that it's not too far in the future. We don't have a lot of exotic hardware to confound those of us who can barely set a digital watch.

Still, we want explanations for things that are not forthcoming. If, for instance, the Greenhouse Theory—among others—is correct and the Earth is getting warmer, why, in fewer than 50 years, will we be in an ice age? What...