This book was pure perfection. This is truly a wonderful story that captivated me from beginning to end. The storytelling, the complex characters, the action--it all worked. I could find no flaw. A Game of Thrones has everything you could need to craft a great story: imperfect characters that bounce between loyalty, betrayal, love, hate, craziness, and wisdom; magic, dragons, and new worlds; action, war, and mystery; and even some romance coupled with loss and longing. There is a lot of information to take in, a ton of characters to remember, and a plot that unravels effortlessly. Martin has managed to build an intricate world with history and detail and I just felt lucky to be a part of it all. This will definitely go down as one of my favorite books and I'm sure I'll be rereading it for years to come. I just hope the rest of the series lives up to it.