Taking a stab at fantasy.

I've never really read fantasy novels before. The closest I get is space opera. I've been wanting to check out some for a while, but don't know what would be a good starting point.

So, I was thinking of possibly starting George R. R. Martin's epic fantasy tale "A Song of Ice and Fire", consisting of 4 books. Is anybody familiar with this, or this author for that matter? I don't want to end up wasting my time reading something shitty, but this won some fairly reputable awards such as the Hugo.

>>1
Read some C.J. Cherryh. She writes science fiction too, so you know she's all right.