Joel, a sixteen-year-old aspiring rock star on the autism spectrum, is taken by his favorite musician Marshall Byle to Spectraland, an island in another world. Joel has the right neurology to use music to make magic effects, and Marshall wants to train him, along with Felicity Smith, another autistic teenager from Earth, so that they can become great songwriters and bring joy to the world with their music.
The books in the series:
- Secret of the Songshell (2012)
- Mystery of the Moonfire (2015)
- Legend of the Loudstone (2017)
- Fable of the Fatewave (2018)
- Ballad of the Bluerock (2020)
- Dance of the Darkeye (2022)
The Joel Suzuki series contains examples of:
- 555: Joel works at Art's Guitars, which has one of these numbers.
- Alien Sky: Spectraland has two moons, which are closer to the horizon than Earth's.
- Alternate Timeline: Later books reveal the existence of alternate timelines. When a person travels to one, they displace the version of themself that was already there, resulting in a person who combines traits and memories of both, and retconning the history of the new timeline to reflect that. In Dance of the Darkeye, Joel and Felicity travel to different timelines to use different versions of the Songshell to infuse Joel with huge amounts of power so he can defeat Marshall. But it turns out that excessive timeline-hopping can weaken the boundaries between timelines, and their actions cause all the timelines to eventually collapse into one.
- Artificial Gravity: Cars in Mono Realm have no roofs or seat belts - instead, passengers are held in place by artificial gravity.
- Boxed Crook: In Mystery of the Moonfire, Joel, Felicity, Thornleaf, and Fireflower go to Darkeye, a potion maker who's been imprisoned for almost two decades, to ask for his help making an all-purpose mind control antidote. Darkeye gives them the recipe and vomits up the special ingredient, and in exchange, the protagonists agree to arrange for his release if the antidote works.
- Broken Pedestal: In Secret of the Songshell, Joel and Felicity are horrified to learn that rather than being the brave hero who defeated the villainous Fourfoot, Marshall was actually summoned to Spectraland to fight in a civil war, and took advantage of the conflict to become high chief of the island's four villages. In order to preserve his position of power, he killed off all the other wavemakers and cast a spell that confused the people of Headsmouth so they wouldn't remember what he'd done.
- Calming Tea: In Fable of the Fatewave, after Seaberry has one of her panic attacks, Fireflower makes her some warm tea.
- The Chosen One: In Fable of the Fatewave, Joel learns that he is the Virtuoso. According to an ancient prophesy, he will become the most powerful Wavemaker in history, capable of traveling through space and time, and will need to save the universe.
- Clap Your Hands If You Believe: In Ballad of the Bluerock, Joel tries to manipulate the Aura using an ordinary guitar rather than a wavebow, and succeeds in getting the headstock to light up a little. But he finds that his ability only works in front of some people. He eventually realizes that his powers only work around people who want to believe in Spectraland.
- Dead Guy Junior: In Secret of the Songshell, a squirrel-like creature called a silvertail starts following the protagonists around. Joel names him Sammy, after a beagle who got hit by a car when he was seven.
- Dead Guy on Display: In Rizor Delta, the local aliens decorate the conference room of their military headquarters with decaying corpses, delivered by the office decor vendor.
- Disappeared Dad: Joel has had no contact with his dad since his parents divorced when he was ten and he, his sister, and his mom moved from Hawai'i to Seattle.
- Dramatic Sitdown: When Joel comes home at the beginning of the first book, his mom tells him to sit down before she breaks the news that they won't be able to afford their apartment anymore.
- Energy Donation: In Legend of the Loudstone, when Joel is low on Aura during his fight with Marshall, Auravine lends him some of hers.
- Faking the Dead: Marshall faked his death in a tour bus accident so he could live in Spectraland, away from the stresses of fame.
- First-Episode Twist: The fact that Marshall is evil is revealed towards the end of the first book, and is crucially important to the rest of the series.
- Gayngst: Redstem is a lesbian, and hasn't told anyone except Joel. Homosexuality used to be at least tolerated in Spectraland, until some time before Redstem was born, when a gay man did something horrible. Ever since then, gay people have been associated with evil and destruction. That gay man turns out to have been Fourfoot, who started a civil war over an unrequited crush.
- Hates Being Nicknamed: Felicity and her older sister Victoria both hate being nicknamed, and annoy each other by calling each other Lissy and Vicky.
- Hungry Jungle: In Secret of the Songshell, Joel, Felicity, Fireflower, and Darkeye have to travel through the Jungle of Darkness, as they don't have the magic to get into the safe tunnel beneath the jungle. The area is infested with ferocious predators, including one creature that resembles a giant walking anglerfish, which breaks their mounts' legs before they manage to defeat it.
- Identity Amnesia: In Ballad of the Bluerock, it's revealed that the scummy potion-maker Darkeye is actually the Wavemaker Boneshoot. When Marshall killed most of the Wavemakers, Boneshoot suppressed his abilities along with his memories. He doesn't get them back until the Aura explosion at Marshall's concert twenty years later.
- It Amused Me: In Secret of the Songshell, this is Marshall Byle's motive for wanting to steal all of Spectraland's Aura, the magical force that pervades the island, and return to Earth with his incredible powers. Becoming a rock star failed to make him happy, but he's convinced that once he has the ability to turn the sky purple, or take out his bad moods by wiping out entire countries, he'll never be bored again. Felicity points out that after a while he'll get used to his powers and be as dissatisfied as ever, but he doesn't think that will happen for a long time.
- Magic Music: Joel and Felicity learn how to make magic by playing a chord on an instrument called a wavebow while thinking about what they want to do. Different chords have different effects - for example, an F chord creates light, and an A chord induces sleep. More advanced players can play riffs or melodies called casts that have more complicated effects, and the most difficult pieces are called incantations, which are the length of a song.
- "Not So Different" Remark: In Secret of the Songshell, Felicity asks Marshall, "What about all the people you'll be hurting? Don't you care about that?" He replies that empathy is a foreign concept for him, just like it is for her. Felicity screams "I'm nothing like you!" because although she feels little empathy, she at least has morals.
- Not So Extinct: Silvertails were thought to be extinct, until one of them tries to steal the songshell. Greenseed says that silvertails are seen as harbingers of good fortune.
- The Omnipotent: Marshall's goal is to become all-powerful. Joel spends Dance of the Darkeye trying to become all-powerful first so he can defeat him. At the end of the book, both of them simultaneously become omnipotent, able to do anything with a thought, resulting in a paradox that threatens the fabric of existence.
- The Outside World: In Legend of the Loudstone, the titular stones allow people to store Aura, thus allowing a Wavemaker to fly out of the island even where there isn't enough Aura in the air to support magical flight. Joel, Felicity, and a group of other Wavemakers fly out over the ocean in pursuit of Marshall and his cronies. They end up in Mono Realm, a magicless but technologically advanced society formerly known as Six States before the despotic Uniter took over the whole region and executed everyone who resisted his rule.
- Parent with New Paramour: In Mystery of the Moonfire, Joel's mom starts dating his boss, Art. Joel likes Art, but still thinks it's pretty weird that they're dating.
- Pet Gets the Keys: In Secret of the Songshell, Joel, Felicity, and Fireflower are all tied up and given a paralyzing potion. Fireflower tells Sammy to get her wavebow, which he does. Thanks to a lifetime of training, Fireflower is able to use her wavebow without touching it as long as it's nearby, and she uses magic to cure the poison, untie their bonds, and fetch Joel and Felicity's wavebows.
- Plant Person: The Spectraland natives have green skin with leaf-like protrusions. Marshall describes them as "almost as if someone combined human and plant DNA."
- Portal Cut: In Mystery of the Moonfire, Fireflower is about to take Joel and Felicity through the rift to Spectraland when Joel realizes that he left his tablet on. He reaches to turn it off, resulting in all the fingers on his right hand being cut off as the rest of his body is transported. Fireflower rushes him to the Wavemaker temple, where Auravine's magic is powerful enough to regenerate his fingers.
- The Power of Hate: After Auravine is killed in Legend of the Loudstone, Joel's rage towards Marshall allows him to pull off casts he could never have managed normally. He almost kills him by draining his Aura before Felicity talks him down.
- Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: Blackspore is the shaman who summoned Marshall to Spectraland in the first place. He disappeared after the civil war and was presumed dead, until Legend of the Loudstone, when the protagonists find him on the small atoll where he's been stranded ever since he tried to teleport to Six States but didn't get far enough.
- La Résistance: In Legend of the Loudstone, the protagonists discover a resistance movement of people trying to overthrow the Uniter. They agree to help them overthrow him in exchange for help defeating Marshall, although the two goals turn out to be the same once Marshall turns out to be in league with the Uniter.
- Seers: Joel has the Sight, which means that by relaxing and clearing his mind, he can notice tiny details others don't. With practice, he learns to use his ability to see into the past by looking for the ghost-like traces of people's previous actions.
- Set Right What Once Went Wrong: In Fable of the Fatewave, Joel and Felicity time travel to before the Fourfoot War to stop Blackspore from bringing Marshall over. They fail, but they do manage to rescue some Wavemakers who would otherwise have been murdered by Marshall and bring them into the present day.
- Shrink Ray: In Dance of the Darkeye, the Shellborn defeat invading alien ships by using a shrinking cast to shrink them to the size of a toy and then trap them in a special containment unit.
- Small, Secluded World: No one in Spectraland has ever been able to leave the island. Once someone gets a certain distance from shore, hundred-foot waves will suddenly rise up, usually killing them. After the natives used Joel's explanation of aerodynamics to develop a flight spell, Fireflower tried to fly over the waves, but the farther she got from the island, the weaker the Aura got, until she fell into the ocean and almost drowned. It isn't until Legend of the Loudstone that the natives figure out how to get past the waves.
- Street Performer: The citizens of Mono Realm are incapable of performing good music unless they're happy, and since the Uniter took over, they've been so unhappy that they are desperately starved for music. Joel and his allies are desperately in need of money, so they start performing Spectraland folk songs at a market. The Mono Realmers are so happy to hear good music again that the group makes lots of money. Then the manager asks them if they have a performing permit and they have to flee, but by that point they have as much money as they need.
- Struggling Single Mother: Joel lives with his mom and his ten-year-old sister Taylor in a small apartment. His mom works at a restaurant and struggles to pay rent. After she's laid off in Secret of the Songshell, the family almost loses their apartment, and Joel has to sell his guitar in order to pay that month's rent.
- Technologically Blind Elders: In Ballad of the Bluerock, Joel tries to call his grandpa, but they have trouble hearing each other because his grandpa keeps holding the cell phone the wrong way.
- Then Let Me Be Evil: Felicity is highly unpopular both in her mainstream classes and in the special classes, where she's the only girl. Eventually she decided that, as she tells Joel, "If people think I'm a witch, I'm just gonna go with that and actually be a witch." She acts rude and abrasive towards everyone, and it's several weeks before she and Joel start to become friends.
- This Is Reality: In Secret of the Songshell, Marshall says, "Fancy yourself a hero, now, do you? Joel Suzuki, next in the long line of epic 'chosen ones' who save the world from the forces of evil and darkness? Well, I don't mean to shatter your fantastical adolescent bubble, but those stories are just a bunch of made-up fairy tales. As strange as it all seems, this is real life - and I don't know if you've noticed, but real life doesn't always have a happy ending."
- Thou Shalt Not Kill: Because each kill degrades a person's Aura, Wavemakers are strictly forbidden from killing under any circumstance, no matter how justified it might seem.
- Time Police: Dance of the Darkeye has the Intergalactic and Interdimensional Regulatory Control Agency (IIRCA), an organization dedicated to enforcing laws and preventing any sort of time travel or timeline hopping that might threaten existence. It has a reputation for being bureaucratic and inefficient, but it's also the strongest military force in existence. The organization consists of members of countless species from different planets, who use translator pods to speak to each other.
- Translator Microbes:
- Marshall has manipulated the Aura in Spectraland so that when the natives speak their language, Joel and Felicity hear them in English, and vice versa. The spell doesn't affect lip movements, making every conversation look like a badly-dubbed movie.
- Dance of the Darkeye features aliens with various translator devices, including collars and chips.
- Tube Travel: Mono Realm's public transportation system is an elaborate network of suction tubes that can transport people between terminals in just a few seconds, although some trips require more than a dozen transfers.
- Unwitting Pawn: In Secret of the Songshell, Marshall tricks Joel and Felicity into thinking that they need to go on a quest for the Songshell to defeat the evil shaman Fourfoot. In fact, he wants to use the shell for his own evil purposes.
- We Can Rule Together: In Secret of the Songshell, Marshall sees to his shock that Joel can touch the fully-powered Songshell without getting burnt, which Marshall couldn't. When he sees how powerful Joel is, he goes from trying to defeat him to begging him to join forces with him so they can conquer the world together. When that doesn't work, he suggests that they become bandmates so they can become the biggest rock stars of all time. Joel doesn't listen.
- While You Were in Diapers: In Fable of the Fatewave, Blackspore tells Fireflower, "I was a master Wavemaker long before you even knew how to tune your instrument."
- Why Couldn't You Be Different?: Riverhand was born missing some of his fingers. His parents never accepted him, and he has a difficult relationship with them because of it. When Joel goes back in time to before Riverhand was born in Fable of the Fatewave, Riverhand tells him to tell his parents to accept their future child even if he's different from the others. Joel does, but his advice fails to have any impact on their relationship with Riverhand in the present.
- Winged Humanoid: Spectraland has nothing that flies naturally, not even birds, but in Dance of the Darkeye Joel and Felicity go to an alternate timeline where the natives evolved wings. In this timeline, some of the characters have different names, like Firefeather instead of Fireflower.
- Wound Licking: In Mystery of the Moonfire, Felicity is scratched by a daggermole, leaving a long gash in her back. A swordcat licks the wound, causing it to slowly shrink and vanish.
- Year Inside, Hour Outside: Joel and Felicity can spend weeks in Spectraland, but Marshall assures them they'll be home on time for dinner.
- Year Outside, Hour Inside: In Secret of the Songshell, the protagonists become trapped for a few hours in Prism Valley, where the Aura behaves very differently than it does everywhere else. When they escape, they find that several days have passed in Spectraland.
- You Already Changed the Past: In Fable of the Fatewave, Joel and Felicity go back in time to stop Blackspore from bringing Marshall to Spectraland in order to save the many people he's killed. They overshoot their destination and end up shortly before the start of the Fourfoot War. Then Joel's presence ends up causing the Fourfoot War - Chief Fourfoot falls in love with Joel and orders him to marry him, but Joel refuses. Island law allows someone from outside a village to refuse marriage to a village chief, and Fourfoot can't change that law without the agreement of the other three village chiefs, so he declares war on the other villages in order to become sole chief so he can force whomever he wants to marry him. Later, Joel manages to talk Blackspore out of bringing Marshall over, but just as the timeline is starting to change, Thornleaf knocks out Joel, Felicity, and Blackspore with a stunning cast and finishes the incantation himself because he thinks it's a bad idea to mess with the timeline.
