Book excerpt: The acronym VAN refers to Drs Varotsos, Alexopoulos and Nomicos, members of a group based in the University of Athens and led by Professor Varotsos (head of the Physics Department) which for over a decade has sought to use electric-field measurements between electrodes buried in the earth to predict earthquakes in Greece over periods of order one month or less. But is such ?short-term? prediction achievable by the VAN approach (or by any other)? This book is an objective collection of the arguments for ? and the counterarguments against ? that approach, intended to help scientific readers arrive at their own answers to this important question, as well as to others (including that of VAN's ?export? potential).