Shepherd Book: The Rolling Verse Interview

By Jacob Austin Sheng; Roving (and continuing to roam) Reporter

I’m not going to bother telling you just how wonderful Pelorum is, or that the weather is wonderful, or how much business the happy little café we’re in is doing.

Forget it. So unimportant.

I’m in fear of my life, people of the ’Verse, pure and simple. The minute I finish this interview I’m leaving Pelorum for good.

That maniac named Jayne Cobb shoved me into a dumpster, and then pushed the Alliance-be-damned thing towards a trash shredder in an alleyway, just because he thought I had applied all that alcohol into my last interviewee.

It was only through the intervention of a fry cook that I was rescued. {Note to Editor: A Mr. Art Tamerlane of the Stars Out Café and Eatery, Heavenly Hallows, Pelorum, is to get a lifetime subscription}

I want it stated on the record that I was completely innocent of trying to get that poor girl inebriated and that psychotic hulk is a menace to decent people everywhere, even Ezra….

But enough about that last unpleasant business.

I’m sitting here with Shepherd Derrial Book, a quiet man of impressive stature and a calm demeanor. But of course, he’s a holy man. He should have a calm demeanor. He wears the grey and black of his order, the Southdown Abbey, and his hair is pulled back tightly against his head. His smile is reassuring and wide, the faint hit of bemused humor in his eyes tells of other possibilities in his life. His hands speak of more than just clerical duties. They are a working man’s hands.

A cup of Oolong tea sits in his working hands, as he stirs some sweetener into it. He takes a sip and gives a moment to appreciate it. He has a way of looking at you that disarms and yet it’s that faint humor in his eyes that always shines through. I imagine one of his sermons is anything but pedantic or boring.

Sheng: Since your signing on with Serenity-

Book: I’m not crew, exactly.

Sheng: What?

Book: I’m not crew, Mr. Sheng. Tech