I don't have a very good understanding of SCEC (short term) prediction efforts...may spend some time with Tom Jordan at a workshop in Turkey this summer when he does not have to deal with 300 other people (just 50 other people?). As for Assembling California...John PcPhee was my favorite author, but that one was much like a text-book. I liked his other geology-related books better...especially the first one, which I read a long time ago when I did not know too much about North American geology. I'd probably find it less interesting now. Coming Into the Country, about Alaska, is one of his best (not especially about geology, although there is a section on a gold miner.
Chris