Having been worn out from the regular fantasy fare, I've taken a pretty long siesta from reading most hardcore fantasy. After a while it all tended to blur together, especially the ones that are from big series. After getting this recommended to me umpteen times from my bookstore customers, I gave it a try & was pretty pleased by what I've read. 
 There's so many different reviews for this, I'll not waste space by giving a synopsis. Besides, the plotline for this first book is so richly textured that I doubt I'd have enough room to do anything that would give the book justice. I'll just skip to my personal thoughts about this book. 
 I loved it. It took me a while to get all of the characters down since there are a lot of characters thrown at you at once. A good portion of the book is character introducing & background building, which I will say is completely necessary for the series. Once you've got the characters down, it's not really a hardship to keep up with everything. Each character is pretty memorable & after a while you'll have your favorites in the series. (My personal favorite has to be Tyrion, although Arya is a very close second.) I also love Martin takes great pains to keep everything as historically accurate as possible. Not many authors can or will do this, so seeing someone do this is a treat. 
 My only gripe with the series is that the author takes so freaking long to put the books out...