Pyro’s Den discussion

What are your feelings on author's having pen names?

Personally I have no problem with it but then with some of them who've I read and then later learn that they also have books under a pen name, I have to wonder did they do it to protect their real name from the books that were not in the same genre they were known for. Such as one I will mention but not give the name and see if anyone can guess it.
They wrote many well known horror (vampire) books and wrote erotica under a pen name.

I'm guessing Anne Rice.

Give that man a Cig-ar!!
But what name did she write under?

a.n. roquelaure and anne rampling



and

Dean Koontz had so many pen names that they were hard to keep up with if you were trying. I enjoyed the Richard Bachman books just as much as I enjoyed Stephen Kings because the writing was so similar. Though I think i would rather use a pen name if the writing style veered away from how i usually write.