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.

Fantasy is great IMO, long as you get good shit. For instance, Neil Gaiman, I love his shit, he's my favourite author. And yeah, not that "wizards and shit". Its fantastic. Or Terry Pratchett, which is like a serious parody. It makes sense. Its got wizards and then hilarious punch lines. I don't know, its weird. My advice is stay away from LOTR cause that shit sucks in my opinion.