Be aware that the similarities between the Wizard and Lord of the Rings is limited to literary genre. Lord of the Rings had me a little tired, frankly inflated, with its long walking this quest through the kingdom. Here, we find this course as a physical initiation of the hero, but the story is much more fluid, faster. Descriptions are there but are rapidly alternating actions, meetings. We are far from the desolation of the Lord of the Rings.
If you are looking for similarities, you can have fun finding, but rather on the side of Harry Potter in his discovery of powers, he arrived in the initiatory circle, his questions.
This book reflects on the part of the author with a passion for games like Dungeon & Dragons: the twists are numerous, well-built characters, parallel but consistent adventures in the whole of history.
So it's a great find and I'm not the first since the success of this book dates from 1985 and made Raymond E. Feist from one of the best selling writers and most productive in the world.
For info, if my wife squatted for a few weeks my book, it was after having advised him the book (while I was still in half), and since she read it, liked it. So, its momentum, she even read the second book of the Guild cycle.
(Quoilire.wordpress.com/2012/04/22/raymond-e-fesit-le-magicien