A long slow start to both this and Game of Thrones... it feels like you are watching history unfolding in realtime which could put some readers off. Personally I found it very apt for the style of the novel. Pace picks up in the final 300 pages and all the storylines were able to maintain interest pace and attention.

Personally I tire a little of the Daenerys thread: whilst I acknowledge her as probably the most tragic character in the story and had high hopes for her throughout and especially at the end of Game of Thrones when the dragons were born, the only progress on her story seemed to be to constantly remind the reader of how feeble her dragons are!

I am going to have to add my voice to those claiming that these are exceptionally good books within the genre (which has always been something of a guilty pleasure of mine). The language in them is good although not great and there are times when passages lacked some of the detailed atmospheric language needed to create the right tone and dream sequences are very difficult to do well (and there are an awful lot of them in this book). What I did find effective was Theon's paranoia in Winterfell and the feeling that the very stones were conspiring against him. In fact, Winterfell is an extremely well crafted environment and as much a character in the book as Eddard Stark (whose presence persists despite his death in Game of Thrones), Catelyn, Arya, Bran, Jon Snow or Tyrion.

It is, in fact, in the creation of character that Martin excels and his shamelessly unsentimental treatment of major characters. And the integration of the more magical, sinister and otherworldly elements was more successful in this book that in Game of Thrones in my opinion.

Well worth continuing with the series.