Open at Your Own Risk: 9 Terrifying Boxes in SF/F

The Everything Box, by Richard Kadrey
Best-known for his Sandman Slim novels, Kadrey brings a lighter tone to his new novel, though it still takes place in a universe where angels seek to destroy humanity for once and for all, and where a thief specializing in magical artifacts can find himself embroiled in an ancient war of the heavens centered on a small box he’s been hired to steal. The Everything Box means different things to different people, but it’s ultimately a doomsday machine that could end the world, provided the angel who’s been searching for it for millennial can get his hands on it. If you accidentally dig this one up in your backyard, we’d suggest putting it right back where you found it, selling the house, and moving far away.

The Shadow Box in Shadows of the Apt, by Adrian Tchaikovsky
The Shadow Box is at the center of much of the action in Tchaikovsky’s intricate, unique fantasy epic. Ancient and bewildering, it’s seemingly just a box made of black wood, but it exhibits classic Evil Artifact characteristics, including eliciting a sense of vague discomfort (it’s a little too large to hold comfortably in one hand) and playing with your brain (the intricate carvings seem like they can be traced, but you never get anywhere). Its immense power is misunderstood by just about everyone who desires it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a truly fearsome object.

The Lament Configuration in Hellraiser, by Clive Barker
Perhaps the most famous box in modern SF/F, the Lament Configuration is a beautiful puzzle box that, when solved, unleashes what can only be described as embodied regret (or, I guess, “pointy torture demons”). In other words: the cenobites, led by the infamous Pinhead, who will take you to their domain to inflict infinite sensual, er…pleasures? It’s debatable, but one thing that’s not debatable is the cenobites strict belief that if you solved the puzzle, you must, on some level, actually want their attentions, and nothing you say—or scream—will change their minds.

The Button Box in Button, Button, by Richard Matheson
Matheson is one of the most influential writers of the modern age, and this short story—which inspired both a Twilight Zone episode and a delirious 2009 film—is peak Matheson. A couple sliding into poverty are visited by a mysterious man who gives them a box with a button on it. Press the button, he says, and they’ll become rich, but someone “unknown to them” will die. It’s a classic dilemma with a sucker-punch of an ending, and remains a powerful read to this day. Suffice to say, if such a box turns up at your house, think long and hard about the contract language before you make any rash decisions.

The Gelatinous Cube in Dungeons and Dragons
Anyone who’s played a role playing game has likely encountered at least one Gelatinous Cube, a mainstay of the D&D universe since its official inception in the late 1970s. A transparent, well, gelatinous cube, it fills the standard dungeon corridors perfectly and moves mindlessly along, absorbing all organic matter in its path. Okay, sure, it’s technically not a box, and the Cubes have been despised as one of the sillier monsters conceived for the game. Nevertheless, Gelatinous Cubes have certainly consumed their fair share of adventurers, so be cautious, and slow your roll (that’s what that means, right?).

The Allspark in Transformers
Every Transformer as a Spark, and the Allspark is the collected energy and consciousness of all Transformers who have ever existed or will exist. Sure, ok, that seems plausible. It wasn’t until the modern film incarnations that the Allspark was portrayed to be physically embodied as a cube (seems like a pretty dire Achilles heel for a race of giant transforming robots). Considering the Allspark can be used to animate any machine, it’s a pretty frightening thing to imagine—if you doubt us, just contemplate the contents of your garage coming to life and coming after you. (Why did I think I needed a circular saw again?)

The Cosmic Cubes in the Marvel Comics Universe
The Marvel comics universe is positively littered with dangerous items, sentient objects, and plain old weirdness. The Cosmic Cubes are one of the niftiest: created at different times by different races throughout history,they began existence as incredibly powerful, non-sentient artifacts, but always attain sentience at some point—and take on an imprint of whatever being used them most. If the wielder of a Cosmic Cube was, say, murderously insane, so would be the Cube when it “woke up.” This is clearly problematic, because the kinds of people generally attracted to powerful cubes (see: Thanos) tend to be a bit, shall we say, insane.

The TARDIS in Doctor Who
Technically, the Doctor is a “madman in a box,” and his beloved TARDIS has been disguised as an old-fashioned police call box for so long, it’s easy to forget it’s an advanced, sentient time and space travel machine (and, as everyone knows, bigger on the inside). The TARDIS is also one of the most dangerous boxes imaginable, and has been responsible for causing a lot of damage, including the destruction of the entire universe on at least one occasion. Sure, you might blame the Doctor’s incompetent piloting and willingness to take risks, but without his box, the madman couldn’t hurt us half as much.

The Meeseeks Box in Rick and Morty
Rick and Morty is one of the most brilliant SFF shows on television, mainly because it couples a real love and respect for science fiction with its own brand of absurd, often obscene humor. When the button is pressed, the Meeseeks box produces one Mr. Meeseeks, who exuberantly shouts “I’m Mr. Meeseeks, look at me!” dutifully completes the task he was engineered to accomplish—say, opening a tight jar of pickles—and self-destructs. When the assigned task forces them to survive longer than a few moments, their existence becomes unbearable, and things…go south. Really far south.
What SF/F boxes do you dread opening?