Look, it's another R.R.! (Apparently Mr. Martin added this lagniappe de plume--I mean the R.R.--to distinguish him from all the other George Martins out there; also, as he says, it worked for Tolkien.)
A Song of Ice and Fire is a (planned) seven book series, currently at four books, which is almost as good as its dust jacket blurbs make it out to be. Which is about all you can hope for in a book, really. This is a good example of fantastic events handled realistically; there are important supernatural elements in the story, but not that many of them. Magic and magical creatures are rare and not well understood; most of what happens is just the (gripping) story of a medieval-technology civil war. In a way, this realism is the biggest drawback to the story for me; people really talk like that, and really act like that, but, well, must art imitate life at quite that level of detail?
On the other hand, the realism of the story has some great strengths. For one thing, the story is written from multiple points of view, so there is no "hero" and no guarantee that any particular good guy will not have his career suddenly cut short by one of the bad guys. Even better, it is not by any means clear who the good guys and bad guys are; you spend the first book hatin' on one character, only to have gained a great deal of sympathy for him by the end of the fourth. Very few of the characters are really good, and none are wholly evil (although at least one comes pretty close).
A complicated story, then, and a moving one, and with its share of rip-roaring adventure, tragedy, and comedy (take a bow, Dolorous Edd!). Whether or not Mr. Martin will ever finish the fifth book is a hot topic of speculation among fans of the series, but assuming he does I will toddle down to the bookstore and buy it.
If you know about me and bookstores you know how strong a recommendation that is.
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