Shirley Jackson and the Chaos Box

"Are you a fan of scary stories?"

Writer: Kalynn Bayron

Format: Novella

Released: June 2025

Series: Icons 03

Featuring: Fifteenth Doctor, Ruby

Synopsis

When a strange signal echoes through time to the heart of the TARDIS, the Doctor follows it to the home of Shirley Jackson.

But the strangeness deepens when they find a sinister figure sowing chaos and discord with the use of a glowing box – encouraging a crowd to murderous deeds.

Catapulted back to Shirley Jackson's own era by the TARDIS, the Doctor (with the help of the time-struck author) must discover the origins of the box, and the terrible power that it wields...

Verdict

Shirley Jackson and the Chaos Box was a great little story to continue the Icons series of novellas! It’s a shame this wasn’t released a year ago to coincide with the broadcast of the Fifteenth Doctor’s first series, but getting an extra adventure with this incarnation and Ruby Sunday is most welcomed. A year on and I still think their time on screen together wasn’t long enough, and that’s something that can be said for the Fifteenth Doctor as a whole now. Setting this early on in his run seemingly directly after The Devil’s Chord was a terrific move and I was impressed with how things were still new for Ruby in the TARDIS. She’d clearly only had three adventures so getting to go back in time to 1937 was still incredible for her and I like that. I think she settled a little too quickly on screen with only eight episodes for that first series so to get additions like this really helps her character. I thought it was fun that after she chose to go and see the Beatles, she now asked the Doctor where he wanted to go. That was a nice touch and he was genuinely appreciative of the gesture. I wouldn’t have guessed Shirley Jackson would be high on his list but apparently he can’t get enough of chatting about her. Retroactively adding that into the Doctor’s character seems a tad strange, but it didn’t hurt things. I can’t say I know too much about her work but I had heard of her and I wonder if it was down to the Netflix adaptation of The Haunting of Hill House that was referenced in the story. I thought it was good to visit her modern day literary museum and that caused the confirmation that visiting her in person was required. We even had the Susan Triad character as the receptionist! There was something off about the box and the Doctor believing it as the inspiration for the mysterious box in The Lottery short story that had such a profound effect on him was intriguing. It’s definitely a story I would be interested in because it did sound scary in how mysterious it was. It did potentially just sound like a lack of detail but without reading it I won’t judge. The characterisation of the Fifteenth Doctor felt slightly off here as I don’t think he was as bubbly as presented on screen, but it wasn’t massively far off and I think Ruby helped capture the likenesses as a pairing. She could tell the Doctor was nervous to meet Shirley and I was actually a little shocked by that. Here they were back at Syracuse University in her writing days and the Doctor was straight into interfering! It didn’t take long at all to confirm they were time travellers and whilst it was Shirley herself who had deduced that about the Doctor and Ruby, it was still fascinating to see the Time Lord be so open about who he was and where he was from. Shirley was a strong character though and getting her in the TARDIS was tremendous. She wasn’t overly gracious or fussed about her work and seemed like she was almost giving up whilst contradictorily accepting of the writer she would become in the future. It wasn’t smugness or arrogance but she didn’t seem all that surprised by the standing of her works in the future! No pressure to get them written then. I thought the threat of the titular chaos boxes was strong and whilst it didn’t feel original, that wasn’t a huge issue for me. I like the concept behind the Ursa in harnessing the energy from peace, but two members of the species had gone rogue and corrupted the boxes that harnessed that power. Peace was too difficult and required diplomacy and discussion, whereas chaos was easy. Especially on Earth. It didn’t take much to rile up a population and 1937 America and 2024 Britain were two easy places to get people angered. I thought having Ruby and Shirley subjected to the box’s effects was good and it was the right decision to not have it last too long. It was just enough to not get too offensive. Luft and Dalni as those of the Ursa that went rogue were strong villains but the moment Misarliyan came into the story they felt so inferior. This was the true might of the Ursa race and she wasn’t impressed with the two members. They would see justice was served and the simplicity in the solution was probably correct for a novella of this length. This didn’t take long to read at all which was nice as I sat in a Liverpool hotel room next to my sleeping son. The perfect read for a quiet evening! The Doctor summoning the true and peace loving Ursa race to deal with their own was good and after dropping Shirley home, all was settled pretty swiftly! I really liked how the Doctor was taken aback by the beauty of Misarliyan’s name and he admired her and her people. I mean, people who use the boxes to feed off peace are going to be right up their street! Even if the origins of that came from war. Overall, a fantastic place in Fifteenth Doctor chronology and a really strong little story to boot. A great read!

Rating: 8/10