(Parentheses)

I have a strong inclination to use parentheses in my fiction at times (I'm a software engineer after all [and use the damn things all the time {if you know what I mean}]).

However, I've fought that inclination and avoid them.  I usually don't see them in works of fiction and my brief perusal of various style pundit spewings said that are loathsome and an evil scourge.  But then, I'm reading a major author's work and wouldn't you know it, the damn thing is full of parenthetical expressions (usually to express the side thoughts of the character) I might normally use italics as work around, but that's me. So, now I'm wondering if I'm going to all this extra work to avoid something that few people really care about (just like the myth that it's grammatically incorrect to end a sentence in a preposition, now even the pundits don't give that a what for).

Oh, and I'll already say, "Yes, they would definitely be easy to overuse (that would be bad)."

I'm inclined to start using them in first person stories, but not in third person.

Thoughts? 

Update (28-August-2014):  While on vacation, I was reading some literary classics. I mostly focused on Lolita by Nabokov. I really didn't have much interest in the story, but several articles cited Nabokov's prose as truly great and among the best written. As a result, I wanted to check out his style and take a closer look at his writing. Full of parentheses! He also uses an abundance of other punctuation. Styles change with the times, and I think parenthesis are falling out of favor some just as the dash has been gaining lots of favor, but I definitely consider parenthesis (used effectively) to be perfectly proper.