Pulp Fantasy Library: The Other Gods

Written in August 1921 but not published until November 1933 in the pages of The Fantasy Fan, H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Other Gods” provides an earliest and revealing glimpse into the ideas that would later coalesce into his distinctive cosmic mythology. Brief though it is, the story articulates with remarkable clarity a vision of the universe that would come to define Lovecraft’s work. In it, the cosmos is neither ordered for human benefit nor governed by sympathetic or intelligible divinities, but instead dominated by vast, indifferent, and alien powers. In this vision, human ambition is not merely misplaced but positively perilous, for to seek forbidden knowledge is not to advance toward enlightenment, but rather to step, unwittingly, toward obliteration.

The story concerns Barzai the Wise, a venerable sage from the city of Ulthar, who has devoted his long life to the study of the gods. Unlike the fearful or superstitious masses, Barzai is driven by intellectual pride and a desire for direct knowledge. When he learns that the gods of Earth are said to descend upon the summit of the distant mountain Hatheg-Kla in the land of Mnar, he determines to climb the mountain and behold them with his own eyes. Accompanied by his young disciple Atal, Barzai ascends the cold, alien slopes and reaches the peak, where ancient stone seats and mysterious carvings suggest a long-forgotten cult.

At the summit, Barzai performs an invocation to compel the gods to show themselves. What answers this summons, however, are not the gentle, familiar deities of Earth, but the Other Gods, who are vast, formless, and terrifying cosmic entities that exist beyond human thought and earthly divinity. As Atal watches in horror, these beings blot out the moon and sweep down upon the mountaintop. Barzai is carried away into the void, leaving only terror and silence behind. Atal alone survives to stagger back to the world below, forever changed by what he has witnessed.

The strength of “The Other Gods” lies less in its action, of which there is not much, than in what it implies. Here, Lovecraft makes a distinction between the parochial gods of Earth and the greater, indifferent forces that actually rule the cosmos. The story marks a turning point from earlier, more folkloric/Dunsanian fantasy toward the fully developed cosmic horror for which Lovecraft would later become famous. Like many of the stories that would later be deemed part of his dream cycle, "The Other Gods" is a transitional piece, standing at the boundary between wonder and horror. 

Lovecraft's admiration for Lord Dunsany is still evident, particularly in the tale's elevated, archaic prose and fantastical setting. At the same time, it's also clearly a rejection of Dunsany’s romantic treatment of divinity. Where Dunsany’s gods are beautiful, tragic, and ultimately part of a comprehensible cosmic order, Lovecraft’s Other Gods represent something colder and more disturbing. They represent a universe in which even the gods of myth are small and provincial compared to the true nature of reality.

The story is notable too for the way it explicitly references characters, places, and concepts that appear (or later would reappear) in previous stories. The city of Ulthar, the character of Atal, and the distinction between “earthly” and “Other” gods are all examples of this. Likewise, the story is an early meditation on one of Lovecraft’s most enduring themes, namely, that the pursuit of forbidden knowledge is not a heroic quest but a transgression of sorts and that the universe does not reward human curiosity with enlightenment, but only with annihilation.