Back when I first read this it was an obvious 5/5, but after thinking about it over the years it really wasn't all that great. The writing wasn't bad, but it did drag a lot more than it should have. I can't speak for the plot since I've only read the first book. The world is a really generic medieval setting. This could either interest you or not. I found the world to be pretty uninteresting (I don't think easier worldbuilding explanations would have helped). Nothing really stood out to me that made me appreciate the world. There were a lot of characters, and too many POVs for me to keep track of what's going on in the story. In every POV each character is doing their own thing somewhere else that by the end of each chapter, I would have forgotten about what happened in the one before it. Tyrion, Ned, and Jon were the only characters I had any interest in reading about. The fights were cool. One thing I'll say for certain is that it has a story that makes me want to see the end of. But I'm sure as hell not going to read any more until A Dream of Spring comes out. With Winds of Winter taking this long to be finished I have no motivation to read any more, only to have to wait years for the next one.