[vladimir998]

I am only familiar with Robert Jordan’s first Wheel of Time book, but I would say that Martin’s are vastly superior. The writing quality is not so different perhaps, but the scale and scope of the story, the richness in characters, character development, plot twist, outright surprises (such as killing off characters whom you believed he would NEVER kill off), puts Martin’s series on a level that Jordan can’t really touch.

If you like fantasy, you might want to look into Patrick Rothfuss’ The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle). Excellent book.

[Durus]

There is no way that a "Song of Ice and Fire" has a greater scale and scope, greater character development, richer characters, and more plot twists or more outright suprises than "A Wheel of Ice and Fire". You need to read more than the first book in a 14 book series to really make a judgements like that don't you think?

I agree that the "Name of the Wind" is a good, bordering on great book, I'm not sure what happened with "The Wise Man's Fear". It didn't outright suck but it wasn't at the same level. Of course Rothfiss is even more annoyingly liberal than Martin and that is saying something.

[BelegStrongbow]

If you read WOT to the end you see that a number of characters you’d never think he’d kill off, he kills off.