Review: It's free, so you might as well, but don't expect much
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 01 24, 2012
I have pretty mixed feelings on this bridge story. Here's why:When I read Prized, and it was revealed that Leon had made it to Sylum, I was elated. However, it seemed like he appeared out of thin air. He was all of a sudden just there, in the prison, with no explanation at all. Later in Prized, Leon briefly mentioned his torture and how his stepmother aided in his escape, but it was vague and not very convincing. So, when I heard Tortured was coming out, I looked forward to learning more about Leon's journey to Sylum, and I pre-ordered this free bridge story immediately.While I appreciated the look into what happened to Leon after those fateful gates closed, I almost felt like this book was unnecessary. First of all, the entire ebook is only 591 locations long - I don't know how many pages that translates to, but it can't be more than 50, if that - and less than half of it was actually Tortured. The other half consists of preview excerpts from Birthmarked and Prized. So that makes less than 25 pages of actual information on Leon. Okay, that's not too big of a problem. As long as we get the story, right? Well, Tortured basically gives us the same information we got in Prized, but with a little more detail.It also only talks about how Leon escaped, not about his tortue - ahem, isn't that the title? - nor how he made it to Sylum. I don't know about you, but I was really looking forward to hearing about how Leon was captured, why and how he was tortured, and by whom was he tortured? I wanted to know about his journey in the wasteland, who found him, and how he ended up in Sylum's jail. Unfortunately, we get none of those things in Tortured. I was gravely disappointed. It was the same thing with Gaia. O'Brien stopped the story right after Gaia left the Enclave and picked it up right before she enters Sylum. We miss the whole chunk of time Gaia spent in the wasteland, and we miss the time Leon was in it, too.Tortured might be worth it to read if you have five minutes of your life - yes, YOUR life - you never want back, but if you're purely looking for an explanation, then you're not gonna get a good one here.