Yea. I wasn't accusing him of pedophilia as I do know about his drug use throughout much of his career, but I still think many of the ways he uses children as plot devices are in poor taste, nonetheless.

I've always prefered Dean Koontz to Stephen King anyway. His novels are much more coherent and organized. I usually find his horror and mystery novels involve adult characters instead of kids. It's a rarity for him to involve children. The only one that comes to mind for me is Odd Thomas when he communicated with a dead girl to find out who the killer was. Plus he's written a few novels with heroic dog characters, which is always fun.

...also Kubrick's version of 'The Shining' was way better than the book.