Halfway through lunch at the Delaunay, a fashionable European-style brasserie in London, George RR Martin compares the giant slab of breaded chicken on my plate to a map of a fantasy kingdom. The fact that he is one of the world’s biggest-selling fantasy writers, and creator of the books on which the hit television series Game of Thrones is based, makes this a little less surprising than it might otherwise be. But not much. Pointing at my irregularly shaped food with his knife, he elaborates: “There are various little inlets where cities could be,” he says jovially, as if he were making the most obvious comparison in the world.

我们在伦敦的时尚欧式餐厅Delaunay的午餐吃到一半时，乔治•R•R•马丁(George RR Martin)把我盘中一大块裹着面包屑的炸鸡比作一张梦幻王国的地图。他是世界上作品最畅销的奇幻作家之一，他创作的小说被改编成了热播电视剧《权力的游戏》(Game of Thrones)，因此，他作出这样的比喻并不奇怪。他用餐刀指着我盘中形状不规则的炸鸡块，解释道：“上面有各种各样的小海湾，城市就可能在这里，”他开心地说，仿佛自己作出了世界上最一目了然的比喻。

It’s an entertaining moment and Martin, 63, does seem to be enjoying life. As well he might - 9m copies of his books were sold last year. The five volumes of A Song of Ice and Fire, his dizzying saga of medieval kingdoms locked in internecine warfare, total more than 5,000 pages and there are two more (very long) books to come before the cycle is complete.

这是非常愉快的一刻，67岁的马丁的确似乎在享受生活。他也应该享受生活——截至2015年4月，他的书已卖出逾6000万册。《冰与火之歌》(A Song of Ice and Fire)是一部令人眼花缭乱、描绘中世纪王国间血腥混战的奇幻巨作，已完成的五部共有5000多页，再有（很长的）两部之后，该系列才会完结。

The first, called A Game of Thrones, took Martin five years to write, and was published in 1996. By 2005, when the fourth volume, A Feast for Crows, came out, he was a successful genre author, nudging the mainstream bestseller lists. Then, in April 2011, things changed utterly for Martin. Overnight, he became globally famous when HBO, the American pay-TV channel renowned for making high-quality drama, put out the first episode of its new series Game of Thrones. This lavish, faithful, and very expensive (a reported $60m per series) adaptation of Martin’s tale of sorcery – and a lot of sex – became a huge hit. As the second series reaches its climax this week in the US and the UK, it has become HBO’s most successful series, shown in 29 countries and with average US viewing figures of more than 10m per episode. Fans include Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who held a Game of Thrones-themed barbecue (featuring goat and “obscure animal parts”) for close friends last month.

马丁用5年时间完成了第一部《权力的游戏》(A Game of Thrones)的写作，并于1996年出版。到2005年，当第四部《群鸦的盛宴》(A Feast for Crows)问世时，他已成为一名成功的流派作家，跻身主流畅销书作家排行榜。然后是在2011年4月，马丁的生活发生了翻天覆地的变化。当以制作高品质电视剧闻名的美国付费电视频道HBO推出的新剧《权力的游戏》(Game of Thrones)首集开播时，马丁一夜之间在全球成名。这部根据马丁的奇幻小说（包括很多性描写）改编的、阵容豪华、忠实原著且成本高昂（据称每季耗资6000万美元）的电视剧取得了巨大的成功。该剧已成为HBO史上最成功的系列剧，在170个国家播出，平均每集在美国的收视人数超过1000万。Facebook创始人马克•扎克伯格(Mark Zuckerberg)也是该剧的粉丝，他还为密友们举办了一场《权力的游戏》主题的烧烤派对（有羊和“不明动物部位”）。

I arrive early, only to find my guest is already waiting, settled on a green leather banquette. There’s a jug of water and two glasses on the crisp white tablecloth, along with some artisan-looking breadsticks and butter. It’s a simple, peaceful scene and Martin looks as though he might have been here for hours. In his richly-imagined world of the kingdoms of Westeros, fortune favours the quick and the well-prepared.

我提前来到餐厅，却发现马丁已在等我，坐在绿色的皮质长软座上。洁白无瑕的桌布上放着一壶水、两个玻璃杯，还有一些精致的面包棒和黄油。这一幕看起来简单而又宁静，马丁似乎已经在这里待了好几个小时。在他极富想象力的维斯特洛(Westeros)大陆诸王国的世界里，运气总是青睐那些行动迅速、准备充分的人。

With his lavish beard and big glasses, Martin cuts a striking figure. He is wearing a dark purple embroidered waistcoat over a black shirt. Most eye-catching is his black fisherman’s cap, which has a small brooch in the shape of a turtle pinned to its front. It’s not a look much favoured at the Delaunay, where the other tables are starting to fill with men in suits. From snatches of conversation I overhear, deals are done here, and takeovers hatched – a modern take on the scheming courtiers of King’s Landing, the affluent, southern capital of Westeros.

浓密的胡须、大号眼镜很容易让他成为引人注目的人物。他身穿一件深紫色、带刺绣的马甲，里面搭配黑色衬衫。最惹眼的是他的黑色渔夫帽，帽子正面别着一枚海龟形状的小别针。在Delaunay，这样的打扮并不常见，陆续入座其他桌的男士都西装革履。从我无意中听到的一些谈话片断可以推断，他们在这里达成了交易，敲定了收购——就像维斯特洛南部富庶的首都君临城(King's Landing)中诡计多端的廷臣的现代版。

Keen to find out more about his inspiration, I ask Martin about his childhood. His accent is pleasingly gravelly to a British ear. It comes from Bayonne, New Jersey (“a blue-collar town”), where he was born and brought up, the son of a longshoreman. Was he solitary? “Well, I had a couple of friends but I was mostly the kid with his nose in a book.” He was mad about comic books (he still has a valuable collection of comics) and read widely.

我很想更多地探寻马丁的灵感来源，便问起了他的童年生活。他的口音在英国人听来有一种愉悦的沙哑感。他出生在美国新泽西州的贝永（Bayonne，一个“蓝领小镇”），在那里长大，父亲是一名码头装卸工。我问他是否感到孤独？“嗯，我有几个朋友，但大多数时间我都是一个埋头看书的孩子。”他曾经对漫画书极度痴迷（仍收藏有很多珍贵的漫画书）且阅读广泛。

The Martin family – he has two younger sisters – lived near Bayonne’s harbour front in a federal housing project. Money was scarce – his war veteran father had periods of unemployment. George’s world was made up of just five blocks, bounded by the water. “There was this little grassy place where I would go and sit and just dream, and no one else knew about it. I could see not only the ferries but big ships going into Newark Bay, freighters from all around the world, with their flags.

马丁有两个妹妹，他们一家住在贝永港口附近联邦政府提供的住房中。家里很拮据，作为退役老兵的父亲经常处于失业状态。马丁那时的世界只有五个街区大小，三面环水。“有一小块草地，我可以去那里闲坐，做做美梦，没有别的人知道。我不仅可以看到渡船，还可以看到开往纽瓦克湾的巨轮，以及来自世界各地、挂着各自国旗的货轮。”

“I had this desire to see the world. I couldn’t see any of it but I saw it in my imagination, and that’s why I always read books, and I could go to Mars or Middle Earth or the Hyborian age.” (The latter is Robert E Howard’s imagined world, home to Conan the Barbarian).

“我渴望见识世界。虽然我不能亲身见识任何地方，但我在自己的想象中见到了，这就是为什么我总是在读书，（在书中）我可以去火星、中土世界(Middle Earth)或者海波瑞恩时代(Hyborian Age)。”（后者是罗伯特•E•霍华德(Robert E Howard)设想的世界，蛮王柯南(Conan the Barbarian)的故乡）。

Back in present-day London, the menus have arrived. “The schnitzel was recommended to me,” he says, as we ponder an overwhelming number of menu choices. We order Wiener schnitzel for him, chicken for me. What does it come with? Nothing, says the waitress, shrugging helplessly and miming a big plate. I picture an empty space on the plate and we order sides. “Buttery mash sounds good,” says Martin. I choose sprouting broccoli with almonds. In anticipation of these heavy main courses we stick to salad starters – endive, pear and rocket for him; avocado, radish and butter leaf lettuce for me. He motions for me to order wine. “Go ahead! A rosé would be nice, you are having chicken, after all.”

回到如今的伦敦，菜单已经送来了。我们看着菜单上令人目不暇接的菜品不知道该点什么时，他说：“有人向我推荐炸肉排。”于是他点了维也纳炸小牛排，我点了炸鸡排。有配菜吗？没有，服务员说，她爱莫能助地耸耸肩，比划着说盘子很大。我想象了一下空荡荡的盘子，于是点了一些配菜。马丁说：“黄油土豆泥听起来不错。”我则选了杏仁花椰菜。由于预计这些主菜很油腻，我们又点了沙拉开胃菜——他点了菊苣、梨和芝麻菜，而我点了鳄梨、萝卜和黄油生菜。他示意我点红酒。“点吧！红葡萄酒会很不错，别忘了，你点了鸡肉。”

Martin, who is closely involved in the Game of Thrones TV series and writes one episode of each series himself, believes its success lies in its universal appeal. “HBO have done some classic shows: The Sopranos, Deadwood, The Wire – which many people consider the greatest TV show of all time. But most of their shows are very American. What does it mean to someone in Thailand to watch Tony Soprano in New Jersey struggling with his family? But Game of Thrones, being fantasy, and set in an imaginary kingdom, and about certain universal issues – of power and family, and love and duty, and all that – does hopefully speak to many different cultures.”

马丁密切参与了系列电视剧《权力的游戏》的制作，亲自为每一季写一集剧本。他认为该剧的成功在于其广泛的吸引力。“HBO制作了一些经典电视剧：《黑道家族》(The Sopranos)、《戴德伍德》(Deadwood)和《火线》(The Wire)——许多人认为《火线》是史上最伟大的电视剧。但他们的电视剧大多非常美国化。一名泰国观众观看新泽西州的托尼•索普拉诺(Tony Soprano)与家族争斗，有什么意思呢？但《权力的游戏》是奇幻题材，以一个想象中的王国为背景，讲一些普遍问题——权力和家族、爱情和责任，诸如此类——的确很可能迎合许多不同的文化”。

Game of Thrones has also become famous for its use of “sexposition” – keeping viewers hooked by combining complex plot exposition with explicit sexual goings-on. “That is something that is not in the books, of course,” he says. “There is lots of sex in the books but no sexposition. I have lots of ways of doing exposition that are not available to David and Dan [Benioff and Weiss, Game of Thrones’ writer-producers].” Warming to the theme, he goes on riffing on the possible wider uses for sexposition. “It should be adopted by industry. Think how much more interesting staff meetings would be if, while they were briefing you ... ” He tails off but the mental picture makes me snort with laughter.

电视剧《权力的游戏》也因使用“以性爱发展情节”的手法——在赤裸裸的性爱场景中混合复杂的情节发展来吸引观众——而闻名。他说：“当然，在书中是没有这个的。书中有大量的性，但没有借助性爱发展情节。我有许多方法来发展情节，而大卫•贝尼奥夫(David Benioff)和丹•韦斯(Dan Weiss)（电视剧《权力的游戏》的编剧和制片人）无法使用这些方法。”他对这个话题来了兴致，不停设想“以性爱发展情节”可能的更广泛运用。“行业里应该用它。想想员工会议多有趣啊，如果他们在跟你作简报的时候……”他越说声音越低，不过想象中的画面让我喷笑出来。

Martin is not new to TV. He sold his first science fiction story in 1970, while he was in college, and his first novel was published in 1977. By 1983 he was expecting to hit the big time with his fourth book, Armageddon Rag, about a rock band. However, he recalls, “it was the worst-selling of all my novels and essentially destroyed my career as a novelist at the time. Oddly enough, the same book that essentially crippled my career as a novelist started my career in Hollywood.” The book was optioned for a feature film by a writer and, though the film was never made, the writer drafted Martin into working on a remake of cult TV series The Twilight Zone. In the following years, he worked on pilots and reworked scripts for others. “I made a lot of money but got very little [TV] made,” he says.

马丁并非电视界的新人。他在1970年卖掉了自己的首篇科幻故事，当时他还在上大学。1977年，他出版首部小说。到1983年，他本来预计自己的第四本书、讲一支摇滚乐队的《末日狂歌》(Armageddon Rag)会取得巨大成功。然而，他回忆道：“这是我所有小说中销量最差的，在当时实际上毁掉了我作为小说家的职业生涯。怪异的是，就是这本毁掉我的小说家职业生涯的书，开启了我在好莱坞的职业生涯。”这本书被一位编剧选中制作一部故事影片，虽然这部影片从未制作出来，但这位编剧邀请马丁参与重新制作非主流电视系列剧《阴阳魔界》(The Twilight Zone)。在随后的几年里，他制作试播节目并为其他人改编剧本。他说：“我赚了很多钱，但很少制作（电视）。”

Our starters arrive. Mine looks like an upturned iceberg lettuce. Martin’s, on the other hand, is an edible work of art, its pile of endive leaves beautifully arranged. We munch in companionable near-silence, until I ask how Martin’s fame has affected his writing: millions are depending on him to keep ahead of the TV series, and to tell us how the saga ends. “I have an assistant and I recently hired a second assistant,” he explains. “I am kind of dealing with the fact that I have become a small industry – ‘Westeros Incorporated’ – so to speak.”

我们的开胃菜送来了。我的菜看起来就像是一个倒过来的卷心莴苣。而马丁的菜则是一件可以食用的艺术品，菊苣叶子摆放精美。我们愉快地默默吃了一会，然后我问马丁，出名如何影响了他的写作：无数粉丝指望靠他让电视剧拍下去，并向我们剧透。他解释说：“我有一个助理，最近还雇了第二个助理。可以说我在适应一个事实，就是我已经变成了一个小产业——‘维斯特洛公司’(Westeros Incorporated)——可以这么说。”

The extra help, he says, frees him up to retreat into writing. “When I am writing best, I really am lost in my world. I lose track of the outside world. I have a difficult time balancing between my real world and the artificial world. When the writing is going really well, whole days and weeks go by and I suddenly realise I have all these unpaid bills and, my God, I haven’t unpacked, and the suitcase has been sitting there for three weeks.” (Martin lives in Santa Fe with his wife Parris, whom he met at a science fiction fan convention.)

他说，两位助理让他解放出来重新投入写作。“当我以最佳状态写作的时候，我真的沉浸在自己的世界里。我与外面的世界失去了联系。我会很难平衡真实世界和虚幻世界。当写作渐入佳境的时候，好几天、好几周就这样过去，然后我突然意识到所有那些账单都没付，天啊，我没有拆开行李，箱子就在那里放了三个星期。”（马丁和他妻子帕里斯(Parris)住在圣达菲，他们是在一场科幻迷大会上认识的）。

Martin’s fictional world is not a sunny one. Lead characters tend to die. Horribly. There was, for example, an internet outcry after Sean Bean, who played noble Ned Stark in series one of Game of Thrones, was – spoiler alert – beheaded. “I was startled to the reaction to that scene in the show,” Martin says, brightly. “Sean Bean has died a lot, this is not his first death. In fact there is a YouTube video where you can see him die 21 times in 21 different films, so it’s not as if the idea of him dying is entirely original to us.”

马丁的小说世界并不光明。主角往往会死。惨死。例如，在《权力的游戏》第一季中肖恩•比恩(Sean Bean)扮演的贵族奈德•斯塔克(Ned Stark)被斩首之后，互联网上一片哗然。马丁灿烂地说道：“观众对剧中这一幕的反应让我吃惊。肖恩•比恩‘死’了很多次，这不是他第一次‘死’。实际上，在YouTube上有一段视频，你可以看到，他在21部不同的电影里‘死’了21次，因此并不是说让他‘死’的想法完全是我们首创的。”

He is methodically working through his endive. Having given up on my lettuce, I suggest that Westeros is, perhaps, the most richly imagined “other” civilisation since JRR Tolkien’s Middle Earth, and has, similarly, broken into the mainstream literary consciousness. Martin, who has long acknowledged a huge debt to Tolkien, says: “There were thousands of years of fantasy before Tolkien but the way it is shaped as a modern commercial publishing genre and the fantasy books that have been written in the past half century have all been influenced by Tolkien. So it still sort of defines the playing field.”

他有条不紊地吃着菊苣。我不再吃自己的莴苣。我说，维斯特洛或许是自J•R•R•托尔金(JRR Tolkien)的中土世界以来想象最丰富的“其他”文明，同样也闯入了主流文学意识。马丁早就承认从托尔金那里得到很多启发。他说道：“在托尔金之前的数千年就有奇幻小说，但奇幻小说之所以能成为现代商业出版的一种文学类别，以及过去50年创作的奇幻著作，全都受到托尔金的影响。因此托尔金的小说仍在某种程度上定义着奇幻小说。”

Have his own books redefined fantasy fiction for the 21st century? “Maybe. They have certainly added some elements that were missing.” I ask if that includes really good parts for women – and dwarves. Women in Martin’s saga are just as morally compromised and sexually pragmatic as the men. And the dwarf Tyrion Lannister (played in the series by Peter Dinklage, in an Emmy-winning performance) is the closest the books have to a hero.

马丁自己的书是否为21世纪重新定义了奇幻小说？“或许吧。它们当然是增添了一些缺失的元素。”我问，这是否包括对女性——和侏儒——真正精彩的描写？马丁的史诗巨著中的女人跟男人一样，会在道德上妥协，在性方面采取实用主义态度。侏儒提利昂•兰尼斯特(Tyrion Lannister)（剧中由彼得•丁克拉格(Peter Dinklage)出演，获得了艾美奖）是他书中最接近英雄的侏儒。

Martin is roused to take me on. “But I think Tolkien had at least one great part for a woman. I love Eowyn, she is really the only woman in it. Arwen was created for the movie.

马丁来了精神，向我发起挑战。“但我认为，托尔金起码写出了一个伟大的女人。我热爱伊欧玟(Eowyn)，她是书中唯一真正的女人。阿尔文(Arwen)是为了电影塑造的。”

“Tolkien was a 19th-century guy, a world war one veteran, and the fact that his books still speak to the modern reader, and are enjoyed by millions of people today, is a sign of his brilliance. I think he will continue to be read for centuries to come.”

“托尔金是19世纪的人，一个一战老兵。他的书仍对现代读者有吸引力，受到今天无数人的喜欢，这证明了他的才华横溢。我认为，未来几个世纪里，他的书仍将有读者。”

He is preaching to the fantasy-converted. I tell him that in my teens I had a map of Middle Earth pinned to the wall, with the route of Frodo’s journey picked out with drawing pins. Maps are very important in fantasy, Martin says (there is a book of detailed maps of his imagined worlds coming out soon). “When you are reading historical fiction and the character says, ‘I must go to Cornwall,’ you know where Cornwall is, you don’t need a map. But when a character in Westeros says, ‘I must go to Dorne’ – you don’t know where that is. So we had to include a map in the opening credits [of the TV series].”

他在向我这个奇幻迷“布道”。我告诉他，在十几岁时，我就把一幅中土世界的地图钉到墙上，用图钉标出弗罗多(Frodo)的远征路线。马丁说，地图在奇幻故事中的地位很重要（一本他想象中世界的详细地图书不久后将问世）。“你读历史小说时，当里面的人物说，‘我必须去康沃尔(Cornwall)了’，你不用看地图，就知道康沃尔在什么地方。但当维斯特洛的一个人物说，‘我必须去多恩(Dorne)了’，你不知道那是哪里。所以，我们得在（电视剧的）片头字幕里加入一张地图。”

Our main courses have arrived. We stare at the plates, each filled with a single giant slab of breaded, apparently fantasy-kingdom-shaped meat. I am grateful for the side order of broccoli, while Martin scoops up his mash. Between mouthfuls, he tells me about how he wrote his first fantasy saga in childhood. “In America at the time, in places like Woolworths, you could buy ‘dime store turtles’ – they came in a little plastic bowl, it had water down one side and a divider down the middle, gravel on the other side and a little fake palm tree.” He demonstrates the layout with his hands. “Those were the only pets we could have. I had a toy castle set up near my bed, made of tin, and the courtyard was just big enough for two turtle tanks, and I had five or six turtles who lived in the castle. I decided they were knights, lords and kings, so I started writing this whole fantasy series about the turtle kingdom and the king of the turtles.

主菜上来了。我们瞪着盘子，每人的盘子上装着一块裹了面包屑、就像奇幻王国形状的巨大肉块。我很庆幸配菜点了花椰菜，马丁则舀了土豆泥吃。一边进餐，他一边告诉我，他在孩提时代是怎么写出第一个奇幻故事的。“那时的美国，在沃尔沃斯(Woolworths)这样的地方，你可以买到‘折扣店专供海龟’——装在一个塑料碗里，碗中间有一个隔断，一侧有水，另一侧铺着碎石子，还有一棵小小的假棕榈树。”他用手比划着碗里的布局。“那是我们能拥有的唯一宠物。我用金属罐在床边搭起了一个玩具城堡，城堡庭院的空间刚好放下两个海龟罐，我有五六只海龟，它们都住在那城堡里。我把它们定为骑士、贵族和国王，于是，我开始写有关海龟王国和海龟国王的整个系列奇幻故事。”

“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。