“And these particular turtles seemed to die very easily. I don’t think it was really a very good environment for them. Sometimes they would escape and you would find them under the refrigerator a month later, all dead. So my turtles kept dying, which was very distressing but it also made me think, ‘Why are they dying? Well, they are killing each other in sinister plots.’ I started writing this fantasy about who was killing who, and the wars for succession. So Game of Thrones originally began with turtles, I think.”

“这些特别的海龟似乎很容易死掉。我想那对它们不是真的好环境。有时，它们会逃跑，1个月之后你会在冰箱底下找到它们的尸体。于是，我的海龟们不断地死去，这让我很难过，但也迫使我去思考，‘它们为什么会死？好吧，它们使用阴谋诡计互相残杀。’我开始写谁杀死谁、以及王位继承斗争的奇幻故事。我认为，《权力的游戏》就源于这些海龟。”

And that’s the meaning of the turtle badge on the cap, I realise. He nods and laughs.

我意识到，那就是他帽子上海龟别针的含义。他点头大笑。

I have abandoned the schnitzel. Martin eventually gives up, too, and the plates are taken away. He is looking forward to going home. “These trips are fun but they do interfere with my writing. I always had trouble with deadlines and still do, as you know,” he tells me, a wry reference to the late arrival last summer of A Dance with Dragons, the fifth book in the saga, which prompted some impatient fans to vent their anger online. He says book six, The Winds of Winter, is “well under way” but still a couple of years from completion.

我没有吃炸肉排。马丁最后也放弃了，盘子被收走了。他迫不及待地想回家了。“这些旅程很有趣，但跟我的写作有冲突。你知道的，截稿期限总是让我很苦恼，现在也还是，”他对我说。他这么讲，是自嘲系列小说中的第五部《魔龙的狂舞》(A Dance with Dragons)推迟到2011年夏天才问世，导致有些急躁的粉丝在网上宣泄愤怒。他说，第六部《凛冬的寒风》(The Winds of Winter)正在“写作中”。

There are more than 1,000 characters in the books, and deeply complex plots that span years. Has he, I ask, got the timelines on a spreadsheet?

他的书里有超过1000个人物，故事情节极其复杂，时间跨越很多年。我问，他有没有在电子表格里写下要事年表？

He taps his head and laughs. It’s all in there, he signals.

他轻拍了一下头，笑了。他的意思是，都记在了脑子里。