The Last Adventure of Constance Verity, Constance Verity Saves The World and Constance Verity Destroys The Universe by A. Lee Martinez
(Jo Fletcher Books, 2022)
Reviewed by Dave M. Roberts
Constance Verity saves the world. A lot. It’s something she’s been doing since she was seven years old, and after twenty-seven years she’s really had enough. This is not unreasonable, as she can barely even go out for a coffee without encountering some evil mastermind wanting to dominate the world or aliens bent on global destruction. Nowadays, she would give almost anything for a normal life and a dull office job. The Last Adventure of Constance Verity describes her efforts to throw off the demands of the universe and become what she perceives as a normal person. Unfortunately, this involves tracking down and killing the fairy godmother who cast a spell on her when she was born making her the carrier of a ‘caretaker’ spell. As could be expected, it was never going to be as simple as that. The nature of the caretaker spell and its purpose provide much of the unstated impetus for the books. As one adventure ends, the controlling power the spell has over Constance and her group of friends is ultimately what is driving the plot. Indeed, the fact it has been removed and part is lodged in one of the other characters becomes key as the trilogy progresses.
Following on from her last adventure in the first book, it’s pretty much inevitable that in the second Constance Verity Saves The World. Once again, the main adventure with unspeakably ancient races wanting to bring the world to an end is really the side show for her increasingly complicated personal life. On top of dealing with an evil super-brain and ancient ocean gods, she also has to deal with her sort of ex-boyfriend, who also happens to be the son of one of her archenemies. This is quite a nice conceit, where the son and heir of an evil criminal empire is actually quite nice, and not really up to the job of running a criminal organisation. Especially when he’s trying to run it as a force for good and, as can be imagined, coming up against some resistance from the employees who really didn’t sign up for that.
In the final volume, Constance Verity Destroys The Universe, a particularly large number of assassins are attempting to kill Constance. While this is not especially new territory for her, the fact that they want to kill her specifically rather than just stop her getting the way of their evil plans is different. It transpires that the destiny the universe has for her is now for her to destroy it. Not only does she have to fend off the assassins, some of whom are very polite, she has to find out why the universe wants her to destroy it and figure out how to sidestep destiny. As the trilogy progresses, the involvement of the people around her in her adventures grows steadily, providing much of the opportunity for comedy and also the increasing importance of her personal life in the narrative. It could almost be described as the ultimate search for work/life balance.
The fate of the universe, and as a result of the caretaker spell, the fate of Constance Verity are closely interlinked. To a very significant degree, destiny plays a clear role. Although it is never entirely clear whether that destiny is just another group of ancient beings trying to run the universe according to some ancient plan for no adequately explored reason. It is this uncertainty that allows the adventures to continue from one book to the next. By rights the story should really have come to an end at the conclusion of each of the books. However, the universe is flexible and odd enough to allow the continuation without it feeling unnecessarily forced.
The humour is generally quite broad, something that is almost inevitable given that the universe Martinez has created is populated largely by caricatures rather than characters. Much of it is aimed at satirising superhero/villain tropes. Hiro, the world’s greatest ninja thief spends much of his time disappearing in the middle of conversations. Constance’s closest ‘normal’ friend, Tia, is cast rather easily into the role of sidekick and her efforts to spend time with Byron, her ordinary boyfriend, are almost always interrupted by someone wanting to destroy the world. If this type of humour is not something you can easily engage with, then you probably want to avoid these books. The caricature nature of the characters is almost certainly deliberate. The characters do seem to have an awareness of being caricatures, and the series is always at its best when dealing with the stresses put on the relationships by the requirements of the universe. It could be argued that the actual narrative is more about the efforts of the characters to break through the caricature and become actual flesh and blood characters, particularly Constance Verity herself. The rest of it, all the broad comedy, is an entertaining sideshow.
The opening book of the series, The Last Adventure of Constance Verity, is the weakest of the three. I’ve always had a soft spot for Martinez’s work, which at its best is screamingly funny. I felt this was a generally lacklustre effort and was a little surprised that it had become a trilogy. However, it does seem to settle into a rhythm, and possibly he is starting to understand the motivations of his own characters. By Constance Verity Destroys The Universe there is much better balance between the slapstick humour and the actual real world stresses of the universe that the characters are forced to inhabit. Whilst I did feel it was approaching the enjoyable quality of his earlier work, I do hope that he is not tempted to continue Constance’s adventures, although I’ll probably read them if he does.
Review from BSFA Review 18 - Download your copy here.