Yes,in my not so humble opinion the best fantasy series ever written. I suppose on a world building scale Tolkien tops it but I'm a sucker for characters with depth and cracking dialogue, both things Martin supplies by the truckload. Westeros is an adult gritty fantasy world with a real medieval edge where people you care about gets hurt. There are couple of psychopaths, but most evil people are understandable. One of Martin’s greatest feat is how he turns around one of the main villains in the first book to a fan favourite in the third simply by allowing the reader his experience his atrocities from his point of view. Another is his ability to surprise without sacrificing internal consistency.
I always liked Jordan because of the world building, the one power, and how it worked, but his characters tended to run together. Especially the whiffing braids and skirt tugging female clones that populate his world. Many accused him of stringing out the story for financial reasons, but I think his world got so big he lost control of the story.
Anyway he was very talented and the trailblazer for the commercial multi volume fantasy series. RIP
