Shepherd Derrial Book

A preacher who comes aboard as a passenger and stays. He is the crew’s calm counsellor – yet he knows surprisingly much about weapons, criminals and the Alliance. His past remains a mystery in the series. Ron Glass died in 2016.

Shepherd Derrial Book comes aboard as a passenger because, after years in an abbey, he wants to “see the world” – and he stays. He becomes the crew’s calm counsellor, even for Mal, who lost his own faith in the war.

But Book is a mystery. He knows surprisingly much about weapons, criminals and tactics, and in “Safe” his ID card opens every door on an Alliance cruiser. The series never reveals who he used to be; that is told only in the Dark Horse comic “The Shepherd’s Tale”.

Ron Glass had been known since the seventies for the sitcom “Barney Miller”. He died in 2016.