Beneath Ceaseless Skies #460, June 25, 2026
“The Ecstasy of the White Sea” by KJ Kabza
“Waiting for The Yellow Ships” by Edward Hodge
Reviewed by Henry Gasko
I won’t say that “The Ecstasy of the White Sea” by KJ Kabza is an interesting fantasy, since that would be a cliché, and there is nothing clichéd about this story. Rather than the standard-issue pseudo-medieval world that features in most BCS stories, this one has a genuinely unique setting: an icy sea roamed by gigantic insects. At least, I think that is what they are since the word “chitin” is mentioned about a dozen times in the first page. And even more unusual for BCS, this one has absolutely no gods, whether real or mythical.
How do you make an interesting story based on an ice-world of gigantic insects? You add some pirates, of course, pirates who have learned to “sail” the giant creatures. The humans have made themselves quite comfortable inside one, with a galley and sleeping hammocks, chitin rope ladders, and illumination provided by the glowing bodies of rotting checker-fish.
But how do you steer an insect the size of a battleship? As it happens, these insects exhibit an extreme form of sexual dimorphism: the giant ones are all female, each one waiting for a tiny male of their species to burrow deep inside her carapace before attaching himself to her “pink pillars” and guiding her. And luckily for the pirates, a human male can do the guiding just as nicely, thank you—I did say this was a fantasy, didn’t I? Unfortunately the process does lead to the absorption and gruesome death of the chosen male in a few years. But you can’t have everything.
(Does this have huge sexual and sexist overtones that are likely to put some readers off? Of course. But this sexual dimorphism is needed to make the story work, and you have to ask yourself: Would the story be any less sexist if the author had not taken the easy default of male pirates and instead had reversed the sexual roles, with female pirates taking control of a gigantic male insect by “mating” with it? Either way, there is going to be an outcry.)
This is the background for a story of cut-throat pirates and the even more vicious mercenaries who hunt them across the frozen wastes of this ice-covered sea in their own gigantic insect troop carriers. The story itself is a bit too long and not all the characters’ actions are completely logical. But it still is an exuberant adventure within a unique and unforgettable setting.
In “Waiting for The Yellow Ships” by Edward Hodge, a farmer is writing a letter to his wife, trying to come to terms with her departure to join the mysterious Yellow Ships that visit the nearby harbor every year, leaving their infant son lying on the grass.
The son, Sarua, is now thirteen years old and the man realizes that he takes after his mother far more than after the man himself. His wife often spoke of death and of the local god Ukh, while the man only wanted to talk about their ewes and the quality of the fences around their property. Now the son sits in the rain for hours and visits the underground Corridors of the Dead to play among the tombs.
The man is unable to comprehend any of his son’s inclinations until one day, while in a drunken stupor, he is injured by a ram. As the son cares for him during his convalescence the man begins to sense a small part of what his wife and now his son are searching for.
The story is an attempt to put into words his journey towards understanding their quest, symbolized by the enigmatic appearance of the Yellow Ships. But the narrative is far from convincing, seeming to ask the reader to forgive and even praise the wife for the decision to abandon her husband and child, as if her narcissistic pursuit of spiritual transcendence outweighs any earthly responsibility, even the care of her infant son.