Mightily Oats is one of my favourite characters, and this has long been one of my favourite excerpts. I do find Granny frustrating though; her inability to change or recognise the other person's way of thinking is like the most dogmatic of fundamentalists I've come across (which I'm sure she recognised in herself when she said she'd be a holy terror as an Omnian).

The moment when Om burns the book as an act of faith is one of my favourite moments in fiction.