Alan Ferguson

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Alan Ferguson was a fan from Kingston near London active in the 1980s. With Trevor Briggs, he edited the fanzine Second-Hand Wave, described by Rob Hansen in Then as:

With its stylish Pete Lyon covers and contents that owed little to the fandom of the 1970s, Second-Hand Wave was to become in some ways the flagship fanzine of those fans who had come into fandom in the wake of Faircon '78 and Seacon '79. It would see seven issues in all, the final one appearing in Autumn 1982. Perversely, each and every issue was numbered 42.

Second-Hand Wave would come second in the 'Best British Fanzine' category of the Ansible Fan Poll for 1980/1981 and would likely have placed in the 'Best British Fanzine Single Issue' too were it not for its peculiar numbering. Ferguson's 'You Must Be Mad' (Still It Moves #2) was also praised in 'Best British Fanzine Article or Column' category. It was about learning to sky-dive and was described by Patrick Nielsen Hayden in Izzard #1 (September 1982) as '[appearing] to be yet another example of the season's new fanwriterly genre: painful & intense experience articles'. Ferguson 'evokes the experience more vividly than any number of movies I've seen of parachutists in the act.'

Martyn Taylor, reviewing Eve Harvey's Wallbanger #7 for Matrix #46 (Spring 1983) said:

There are 'Letters from America', penned by Alan Ferguson. I had previously regarded Alan as an interesting enough guy to talk to but someone who seemed to lose his grip whenever sat before a typewriter, probably as a consequence of an apparent determination to be fashionable and 'provocative'. Here, and in the latest Second Hand Wave, Alan shows himself capable of being an essayist of some distinction. In 'Letters ... ' he has that most hackneyed of topics - 'What I did on my Holidays' - and takes us on a Ferguson tour of the U.S.A., impressionistically.

Ferguson was on the committee of Yorcon III, the 1985 Eastercon

Fanzines and Apazines:

• Second-Hand Wave [1980–81] (with Trevor Briggs)

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