I just completed the 2nd light novel of SAO. Another good book, that filled in what was on the Anime, but not in the books. It contained 4 mini-stories. The first was Kirito meeting the armorsmith girl that Asuna was friends with. He breaks her best sword, then going on the adventure with her to find the Crystalline ore that's actually shit from a dragon. And the two spend the night in giant hole that's at the top of a mountain in order to get the ore. She falls for Kirito, but then is sad because Asuna likes him.
The 2nd story is about the younger girl that has the pet dragon. The dragon dies, so Kirito goes on a trip to help her revive the pet by using a special flower that's was found in a dungeon on whatever floor. They get the flower, but then are jumped by a "PK Guild" who want to steal it. Kirito sends all of them to jail, and we learn that the dragon girl was nothing more than bait to complete the task of getting that PK guild to go to jail.
3rd Story was where Asuna and Kirito meet their "daughter", Yui. She's the AI program that was a ghost on their floor, but then they help out another guild by saving the guild leader who was lured into a trap by the guild's #2. Yui is found by the host program and destroyed, but Kirito somehow saves her file information into a heart item that he gives to Asuna.
The 4th and final story, was about Christmas. The game had a Christmas NPC that was rumored to drop a resurrection item. Kirito nearly kills himself to get it, only to discover that the item only works for the 10 second window immediately after a person "dies", but before their character avatar explodes into crystal fragments.
The writer of this light novel is pretty talented. I can understand why they made such a good anime out of it. However, after reading the first 5 light novels from Grimgar, I *REALLY* wish they would extend the anime for that as well. That dude is a really good writer, and the adventures we haven't seen yet encountered are awesome.