I Just Finished Reading A Book

It's the first volume in a fantasy series. It's about a land with a very powerful Evil One. He has no physical form, but his power can be felt. He "lives" in a tortured land behind a great mountain range. The air and all that grows there are rotten.

The Evil One has many minions: armies of vicious and twisted brutes, dark caped man-like shadows with great power, and fierce flying creatures whose shrieks cause fear.

The Evil One wants something. To this end, he dispatches his minions to a particular place of interest. The trouble caused by this act forces some of the inhabitants of this place to leave, pulling the eye of evil away from their home.

Others join in to help the fleeing inhabitants. One is a person of great magical power who can protect them and knows much of the Evil One. Another is a man who should be a king, yet he renounced his claim so that he could learn the ways of the wild to help fight the evil.

At one point, they enter an ancient city for protection. The evil is too great there, so they must flee, but barely make it out alive.

Along their travels, one member of the party is killed, but they find out later that this is not necessarily true. They also meet a being who looks like an large animated tree.

Can you guess which book I read?

Is it this? Or this?

It was the latter. Not since this have I seen such a blatant rip-off. Granted, I did enjoy the book, but you'd think the author would have read his predecessor's work and would have avoided such obvious overlaps.

I think I'll finish my slush pile before considering continuing this series.