Finalists for the 1992-1993 Los Angeles Times Book Prizes : SCIENCE and TECHNOLOGY

BAD SCIENCE: The Short Life and Weird Times of Cold Fusion by Gary Taubes (Random House). A compelling chronicle of what went wrong in the cold fusion episode, an event that confounded both scientists and laypersons when it made headlines in 1989. This account is necessarily more about how the scientific community reacted to the news than about the eventually debunked scientists (who became inaccessible for interviews) responsible for the furor.

The Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalists and winners are selected in each category by an independent panel of judges. Winners will be announced in the Book Review issue of October 31.