Book excerpt: Humanity is taking its first steps out into the universe, but something otherworldly is happening closer to home. For the young Jake Darling, stories of alien experimentation and lights in the sky have become all too real, and what was once the talk of lunatics is now disturbingly true. The seventh installment of Aethertales, An Ascent to Madness blurs the lines between delusion and reality, recounting the struggle of one boy against a family that refuses to believe him, and the sinister beings that have turned his life into a terrible nightmare.