In Next Target - Earth! an alien civilization multiple thousands of years in advanced technology has interfered with life on Earth even before the demise of the dinosaurs. Their meddling resulted in the creation of atomic weapons during WWII. Earth is now in the middle of the twentieth century, and the alien civilization has determined that humanity is advancing in technology too fast and will again eliminate all life on Earth as they did when the dinosaurs became a bore to them.

Fortunately for Earth, the aliens are fighting a war with a sister civilization in their own galaxy so the Earth is a secondary target-for now.

This alien civilization is a mirror image of humans. Their inability to understand that peaceful cooperation is preferable to aggressively eliminating life forms that are not part of their civilization reflects the divisions found on Earth throughout the existence of humans on our planet. Constant wars and lack of empathy for others has needlessly deprived humanity of hundreds of thousands of resources that could have been used for the betterment of the human race instead of the wanton destruction those wars have wrought. The book ends with the burning question: Is there anyone-or something else-out there?

About the Author

Johnny W. Underwood is a career soldier, joining the US Army at age seventeen immediately after graduating high school in Arkansas. He survived basic combat training at Fort Polk, Louisiana, in the summer of 1968 and completed advanced individual training as an engineer heavy equipment operator at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. After AIT he was assigned to a field artillery unit in Germany and was promoted into the ranks of the cannoneers. He served in Germany for a cumulative total of eleven years and at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, the home of the field artillery, for a total of thirteen years; six and a half of those years were as a drill sergeant. Other assignments include a tour in Vietnam in 1969-70, two years in South Korea, and three years at Fort Lewis, Washington. He completed the US Army Sergeants Major Course at Fort Bliss, Texas, in 1986 as a member of Class 27 and was the command sergeant major of three battalions, two brigades, and a Corps Artillery for the last twelve years of his thirty-year Army career. After retiring from the Army, he was a Zone Manager for GEICO's local office program for five years and a manager in the GEICO Military Department for fourteen years. He retired from GEICO in 2017. He lives in Northern Virginia with his wife of more than thirty-six years.