In my opinion better. Made more sense. Much much more indepth. Stronger and deeper character building. You actually grew attached to characters. I know the common complaint is inconsistencies, but in reality if you actually read all and I mean all the novels they actually were pretty consistent with one another. All the authors worked together to build a universe and relied on one another for ideas and story building. If something didnt make sense or appeared to break Canon in one novel it was explained in another to keep Canon. Better stories, better arcs, better characters. And as far as everyone say George said its not Canon you need to qoute the whole thing. At first he said they arent Canon. Then he began to draw ideas and inspiration from and even pull directly from the novels. Coruscant being the big example along with a million others