Other Places, Other Times is a collection of twenty-six historical fictions. Thirteen of the stories are about Chen Hsi-wei, an imaginary peasant/poet of the Sui period, circa 600 C.E.
As a boy, Hsi-wei served the emperor on a perilous mission. He turned down the offer of material rewards in favor of an education which made him a poet. Hsi-wei travels the empire making straw sandals and verses. The narratives account for Hsi-wei's poems, which are also included.
The other thirteen stories are set in various times and locations, from post-war England to Renaissance Italy, Paris in the Fifties to post-war Germany, South America in the sixteenth century to Hesse in the mid-nineteenth, Ruthenia in the seventeenth, and the American West after the Civil War.