Opium Magazine’s Literary Death Match returned to the Texas Book Festival for an hour of piercing wit and metaphorical carnage. The Paramount Theater was packed as Opium’s founding editor and LDM host, Todd Zuniga, took the stage with local darling and co-host for the day, Owen Egerton, three celebrity judges, and four writers to contend in literary battle. Zuniga wore a sparkle tuxedo. Egerton wore a hat.

For the first round, Charles Yu (How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe) and Karen Russell (Swamplandia!) each read seven-minute selections from their books to be judged against the other in three categories: Literary Merit, Performance, and Intangibles. Yu’s futuristic self-mocking chronicles the love affair between a time machine repair man (a self-prophesy of Yu himself set decades ahead of the present) and his computer’s operating system, Tammy. Yu easily earned laughter from the crowd, striking a perfect balance of nerd humor and quiet, rather pathetic, sadness.

Russell gave him a run for his money, chronicling the story of an awkward teen’s first sexual experience. The origins of her character, Kiwi, a “red-headed virginal dork”, remain mysterious to the author. Russell wondered aloud while introducing the selection, “I don’t know how I could’ve imagine a character so far from myself.” As Russell neared the end of her piece, Zuniga emerged from stage left to deliver the NERF gun time penalty, causing Russell to rush quickly through the end in a way one judge would later liken to the legal disclaimer on a prescription drug commercial.

Adam Mansbach, author of Go the F**k to Sleep, served as judge of literary merit, and took it upon himself to represent the Lit Bro community, telling Yu, “That was dope, bro”, and addressing Russell in thinly-veiled teen ejaculate metaphors. The match’s performance judge was children’s book author, former cooking show host, and burgeoning eyewear mogul, Lisa Loeb. Chuck Palahniuk fulfilled his duties as intangibles judge by going to the restroom mid-reading and answering his cell phone onstage, which, in his defense, was funny at least once.

While Russell’s frantic blur of consonants punctuated by the lone discernable phrase, “like a starfish spontaneously attached to her vagina,” may have been the highlight of the afternoon, the round went to Yu.

Round two pitted YA humorist Libba Bray (Beauty Queens) against cookbook author Martha Hall Foose (A Southerly Course: Recipes and Stories from Close to Home). Bray read first, from her novel of beauty pageant contestants turned plane crash survivors with the most impressive degree of showmanship match, a point not lost on Loeb, who referenced her own history with acting classes in her praise of Bray. Mansbach was unimpressed with the green room. Palahniuk took a phone call.

Foose quickly emerged as the dark horse of the Death Match. The Mississippi-born chef launched her attack with motherly wiles, homemade fudge for the table of judges, and thickly-drawled stories chronicling her life and career through the different ways she cooks eggs. All in all, Foose’s performance was unfairly and unsettling good for a person who doesn’t consider herself a writer. Like Russell, Foose fell to Zuniga’s NERF gun of time penalty, but was still victorious over Bray.

In traditional LDM fashion, the final round abandoned literary pretense and Zuniga and Egerton led Yu and Foose in a sloppy bit of game show-style chance. Foose triumphed by a slim margin, making this Yu's second LDM loss. When pressed by Zuniga on the matter, Yu confirmed that losing twice does, in fact, feel like you think it feels.

The authors and judges retired to the book signing tent immediately following where they were later seen gossiping amongst one another. Zuniga packed up his magical LDM circus and will head to the UK next for shows in London and Dublin.