This is low-fantasy fictional history at its best. Lots of battles, doublecrossing, backstabbing, machinations, and just plain dumb luck turning the tides of war.

King Aerys was mad, and he was overthrown by an alliance of the Starks of Winterfell, the Lannisters, the Baratheons, and other great houses. Now some of the families are scheming to replace King Robert Baratheon.

In addition to the Machiavellian doin's of the Houses, Winter is coming. Winter comes once every great many years, and with it come the wights and the Others from the North, beyond the great Ice Wall (which is guarded by the Brothers in Black -- basically a group of criminals and political exiles tasked with guarding the Wall as penance).

Note: these books are *rough*. People die quite a bit in sometimes nasty ways, and as Thane told me, don't get attached to anyone. I'm half way through the third book and that admonition was just wickedly brought home with a particularly nasty piece of work. Fortunately there are a lot of characters (all very well done), so I'm confident that someone will be left at the end. :-P

Some of the best fantasy I've read in a long time. Recommended in spades.

... but I wasn't reading the books at the time so I missed the references. That was pretty much my reaction, too.

Warning: spoiler from A Storm Of Swords (highlight to read):

I just read the part where Robb and Catelyn get it in Frey's castle. I had seen the foreshadowing (the direwolf freaking out, the bit with making sure they ate something so as to be guests, giving the men-at-arms lots of beer and wine to drink, etc.) so I was a little prepared, but I still thought that maybe they were just going to be captured or something. But the worst part was when Arya takes the axe in the head right afterwards. I actually shouted out loud, "Man, you gotta be f***ing KIDDING me!!! Not her too!?!?" I was so upset that I did something I very, very rarely do: I skipped ahead to see if there was another chapter with her name, because I had the suspicion that the Hound had just knocked her out. Fortunately I was right and I could calm down a bit. :-P I've noticed that there are slight differences in the chapters for people who die (so far): they don't seem to be positive characters, in that things happen to them instead of them controlling what's going on. The first book was a big shock too, what with all the build up on Ned from his point of view and then him losing his head. A very disconcerting but effective technique. :-)