This was a slow start for me, but after the first 200-300 pages I found it really picked up and I thoroughly enjoyed it. An impressively complex world with a huge array of well-developed characters. Maybe the closest thing to A Song of Ice and Fire I've read, so if you're trying to fill an ASOIAF-shaped hole in your heart, I strongly recommend it. 

It has a lot of similar plot points to other epic fantasies, but was overall well-written and j enjoyed it. I do think that the sexual content of this book is definitely overblown (heh). Although there are reasonably explicit sex scenes in this book, they're all still pretty fade-to-black in my opinion. There is explicit description of BDSM practices though so if you're not comfortable reading about those this might be one to skip.