Cinderella and the Magic Box

"I don't even have a dress to wear."

Writer: Justin Richards

Format: Short Story

Released: August 2026

Printed in: Time Lord Fairy Tales 03

Featuring: Eleventh Doctor

Synopsis

We are all stories in the end...

Sixteen tales of ancient wonder and mystery, passed down through generations of Time Lords. 

Dark, beautiful and twisted, these stories are filled with nightmarish terrors and heroic triumphs from across all of time and space.

Verdict

Cinderella and the Magic Box was a very good little story to continue my way through the Time Lord Fairy Tales collection! This short story was a fairytale of a different kind as whilst I do think the book and its contents are marketed as if they are fairytales told to Time Lords, this one is more focused on having one in particular at the forefront. That would obviously be the Doctor and why wouldn't he be taking Cinderella to the ball? Well, dropping her off at least. It seems silly in hindsight for me to think that the magic box in the title could be anything else other than the TARDIS! It just fits very nicely and is very much the stuff of fairytale. I liked how this story put the fictional life of Cinderella on an interstellar scale and it worked really well to be fair. Translating Cinderella to the stars isn't something I would have anticipated as being a good idea but it comes off very well and I think the short story format actually helps with that. We don't stick around long enough for things to get silly or venture into realms of unrealism and I appreciated that a lot. The pace was fast but not too frantic and this was just a lovely way to fill eighteen pages! I thought the Eleventh Doctor was a very strong fit for this kind of tale because I would say he is the most fairytale-like of incarnations. I mean, just look at The Snowmen and him literally living above a cloud! I know he was sulking but if that isn't the stuff of fairytales then I don't know what is. The start of the story was familiar with the traditional telling of Cinderella and her wicked stepmother and stepsisters. It really is a bit of sad state of affairs to be in the position she is but I found myself admiring her! She was nothing much more than a slave and yet she was still grateful to be in the position she was. She wasn't going to the ball that night but at least she had food and a roof over her head. That was an incredible outlook on her situation. No wonder the Doctor wanted to help her! I mean, he was also using her for his own gain but he was doing something for her at the same time. I wouldn't say his actions were manipulative but he definitely had an ulterior motive. It didn't get to the levels of the Seventh Doctor or anything like that, but it wasn't as charming as I might imagine this incarnation to be! He armed Cinderella with the sonic screwdriver and as the clock struck midnight she was called into action. Lord Darke turning out to be a vampire was pretty fun stuff and his plan for the prince and his entire people was dastardly! The whole ball was a front to get to the prince and turn him into a vampire so he could then befall that fate on his entire population. It was quite the scheme! I was intrigued that the Doctor couldn't action things himself because of artron energy being detected, but didn't Cinderella herself travel in the TARDIS to get there? The description of her bathroom and the fact it was time locked was also sublime. And the middle tap being lemonade! It truly did sound like paradise. The prince catching up with Cinderella at the end and returning her shoe was a nice touch to stay true to the origin story, but this definitely had the atmosphere of a fairytale which was lovely. Overall, a great little read to continue my way through the collection! 

Rating: 8/10